In an on-location report on “Good Morning America,” the GMA correspondent — describing Johnny Taliban’s first court appearance — had this to say: “I was struck at how young he looked, how frightened. He seemed dazed, lost, almost stumbling into the courtroom, flanked by two large guards.”
Let the mushy, touchy-feely framing of Johnny Walker as poor, lost, misunderstood soul begin. We’re not putting on trial a traitorous Islamo-scab who waged war against his own country, after all! No! We’re using all the (browbeating) force of the U.S. legal system to bully Peter Frickin’ Pan…!
(sigh)
Wonder how young he looked with his rifle slung over his shoulder and his belt lousy with grenades…
So how does this happen, this liberal media thing? Is journalism just boring to conservatives? Is the discrimination against objectivity the secret, yet-unnamed -ism?
I’m with Bernie Goldberg on this one: I don’t think there’s some sinister, left-leaning master plan to skew opinion, rather, it’s what most journalist’s know (and it’s kinda the status quo). From a practical standpoint, a good “wayward boy returns” story fulfills the human interest angle so important to many of today’s producers/editors—who in turn think its what we the viewers/readers want.
I don’t think there’s any discrimination against objectivity, either; it’s just that objectivity has become “objectivity”—a term perceived as necessary colored by context(s). Once you give up on the idea of objectivity (that is, once you start looking at it as just so much “factual correctness”), its a short step from reporting the facts to using the facts to report something.
I’m sorry but I’m getting pretty darn tired of the old excuse of age. 1. There is right and there is wrong and you can do right or wrong at any age. Joining some nut-based group is wrong no matter what age you are. 2. God is JOhnny bin Laden was in his 40s they would be saying that he was just a guy going through his mental cirsis for Cris’sake!