You may have heard in passing that a man in California was arrested for making phone threats to former Congresswoman Diane Watson.
Diane Watson served in the U.S. House for 10 years as a Democrat. She was idenified by at least one group as the most liberal member of the House. One item of controversy is she opposed government efforts to allow people to identify themselves as “Bi-Racial” for the Census – an idea strongly opposed by groups that support extracting government benefits based on rigid racial classification laws. Ms Waton is clearly bi-racial herself. Ms Waton is 77 and decided not to run again in 2010.
The man who made the death threats is out on parole. His motive is “unknown”. His full name is Sheron Lamont Nelson, a 42 year old black man from South L.A. When police checked his apartment, they found stolen electronics, but no weapons.
So which media outlets felt it necessary to hide his racial chracteristics, which may well have been part of his motive:
Fox News L.A. published his full name, his age and picture right away.
NBC LA – photo, identifies him as “African American”, no middle name
CNN International – omits his middle name, no picture, no description that he is black, tries to make a connection to shootings in Arizona
LA Times – no middle name, no picture, no mention of his race
Associated Press – no picture, no middle name, no reference to his race
CBS 2 TV – LA (just reprints AP copy)
Fox News (National) – no picture, no middle name, no mention of being African American
When I learned the dark arts of journalism, the then system held high a few basic tenets. Chief among them were 1) accuracy, 2) completeness, 3) fairness, 4) firmness, 5) impartiality. Then, after checking and rechecking sources and quotes, it was publish and be damned.
Whatever malignancy infected the trade that I once enjoyed, defended and revered, metastasized and mutated the body into a grotesque, self-loathing and sorely disgusting thing. I am so ashamed ever to have been a part of it.
I also worked for about 20 years in the print media and radio. I feel the same way. What ever happened to being “the perfect mirror for the community you serve,” anyway? Sad beyond words.
Sad, indeed. Fox News – the erstwhile conservative network – once again follows the path of the liberal media. A criminal by any other name/color/religion/gender is still a criminal.
bill cunningham said he was good friends to boehner and now boehner wants to let dems have the dept celling this means they get more loans and the tax pauers and our children and our grand children will be in dept all their lifes to pay for it we need the kids we hired to fix our nation to do as we tell them stop the spending and defund obamacare let it go away without funds take the funds for obamacare and fix social security and medicare and bring our troops home to many have died careing for the drug crops of some war lord and our troops can help close the boarders