Yesterday, they put the story on page 7. They could not bear to move the story about the Cuban sustainable farmer off the front page to make room for it.
Today, they put it on the front page, with the headline “Train Suspect Known to be a Risk.” They focused their page one coverage on this aspect, and waited until the end of the story on the jump page to discuss the Americans and a Brit who overcame the terrorist.
I can only conclude that anything that smacks of Civilization vs. Barbarism is just too much for WaPo editors, or perhaps their readers, to bear.
Speaking of which, whether this “known risk” slipped through or not depends on the denominator. I mean, how many names are on this list of “terror risks”? Are we talking about 100, or are we talking about 10,000? If it’s 100, then, yes, the security forces should be able to keep tabs on them and not leave it up to unarmed heroes. On the other hand, if it’s 10,000, then the list has no tactical value, but it gives you an idea of what you are up against.
Front page of the NYT this morning. Are the two papers really so different?
Wish I could claim credit for the insight: “The point of journalism, in today’s America, is to make sure that Americans don’t know things that might cause them to vote Republican.”
Instapundit — http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/213028/
I suspect this is a result of Tyler’s insight that media bias is driven more by the consumers than the producers.
People don’t want to hear a story that sounds like a movie? Isn’t this a Bayesian point going the other way?
That’s a good point, although this would be a interesting case to evaluate that reasoning.
The print version of the Post is distributed to the very left-leaning DC metro area. The online version is distributed worldwide, of course, and I would guess to a more politically diverse consumer mix.
Was the online version of the story substantially more focused on the hero-terrorist angle?
There was a substantial difference in the online CNN versions of the story based on whether or not you accessed it via the CNN international page.
The funny thing about people, and I really hope it is liberals and not simply most people, is that having 10,000 people on a list makes them feel better than having guys wrestle down the inevitable ones that slip through the cracks. I don’t understand it. What is it?
It is like a personality type. It is like they don’t have a paradigm in their mind to be able to process the one and maybe I have no ability to trust in some black box system as progress.
Have the lists ever worked? Unarmed heroes have worked every time.
According to the French press, the French police have an “S list” of terror suspects of about 5,000. The “suspect” tackled on that train is said to have been on that list.
Further question: When should the press stop using the term “suspect” (Term used by WAPO in their headline)? I would say at this point his link with “terror” is more than suspicious. The presumption of innocence is certainly appropriate and our language should reflect that, even in what appears to be an obvious case, but is it appropriate in this case to revert to “accused” only when charges are formally brought? Is there another, more appropriate term to refer to his present status?
“Victim of a beating”?
Not as far fetched as it sounds (in the legal sense). European jurisdictions generally doesn’t give a lot of leeway to those defending their person or property from claims of the use of unnecessary or excessive force. Also, since they tied him up after the beating, I guess we may suspect he might be a victim of false imprisonment to boot.
A hate crime.
I know this isn’t the right blog for it, but we had the President take the wrong side of a story where a fed up guy was trying to keep his neighborhood from being picked clean was having his head smashed into concrete and fired a single shot (unlike the government officials who unload their sidearms). I am joking around, but in reality I put nothing past anybody.
Vivian, I think the more appropriate term you’re looking for is “perpetrator”.
Not “underrepresented minority with underappreciated views on the use of violence in society uses inappropriate venue to vour concerns, sone say.”?
“I can only conclude that anything that smacks of Civilization vs. Barbarism is just too much for WaPo editors, or perhaps their readers, to bear.”
More likely the WAPO knowing that TV and the net had covered that aspect of the story heavily. Suppose they are trying to make money. (You are an economist i believe.) Do you lead with the same stuff already on TV or do you try for another angle?
I had never heard this story until Arnold “broke” it. Granted I go very few places for “news.”
This also doesn’t jibe with my theory of the media. I think they would go along with whatever the trending angle of a story is.
Nothing is proven, but nothing is certainly falsified.
By this logic Fox focused on the detail that Mike Brown was struggling over the officer’s gun because all the “cop shoots guy in back while on knees with hands up” had simply already been extensively covered.
I’m sorry. I’m mostly entertaining myself, but what is going on is rather obvious, we just don’t have the right language nailed down to describe it yet. But we can dispense with the hand waving.
Civilization versus Barbarism? Hey, not so fast. According to the “suspect’s” attorney, this is a case right out of Les Misérables. The suspect is really a modern-day Jean Valjean. Per the attorney, he was a poor, hungry, frightened Muslim kid who found an AK 47 in a park, along with several ammo clips, a handgun, box cutter, etc. and decided that he’d board the TGV to France in order to rob some rich passengers in order that he could satisfy his hunger.
Quite aside from the unbelievable nature of this claim, this has got to be the stupidest criminal lawyer on the planet. Don’t simply accept what your client tells you as “the truth” and never, ever, put out that “truth” until you have to and certainly not before you know what the other side’s got and most certainly not the day after your “suspect” is arrested.
Again, supply or demand?
As an off topic aside, I have a game I play and it literally gets me laughing out loud. I’ll hear the headline of a story on NPR and I’ll try to guess if and what will be the race or gender angle they take on the story. Try it. It is fun and I don’t get quite as angry anymore.
Another good example. Any home invasion that results in a death is headlined and described as a “deadly home invasion.” This is even when the home invader is shot by a gun-owning home borrower. There are two not mutually exclusive ideas. One is that liberal journalists either can’t or won’t get their mind around it. Two is that they know that their readers aren’t home invaders, so they write the story as if they are writing from the perspective of home invasions being deadly, they just fail to say until the last paragraph that it was deadly for the criminal.