Monday, July 26, 2010

When apologies were not in fashion

Since the MSM thinks apologies are the order of the day, Legal Insurrection has a few cases that deserve a mea culpa or three.


Still Waiting For Apologies

It's a lengthy list, but it only scratches the surface.

For example, since we now know that context is everything and editing video foortage is terrible, where are the apologies for the "Collateral Murder" propoganda from Wikileaks?

It's funny, in a sick kind of way, that Shirley Sherrod has become a martyr because she was went through a couple of days of bad press and unfair attacks. In terms of duration and viciousness, her "ordeal" is a day at the spa compared to what happened to the three falsely accused Duke lacrosse players.

So you might ask, how did the MSM handle their apologies back in 2007?

Short answer: grudgingly or not at all.

More than a few actually continued to attack the innocent players in order to cover for the media's failure.

Here is Terry Moran of ABC News
But perhaps the outpouring of sympathy for Reade Seligman, Collin Finnerty and David Evans is just a bit misplaced. They got special treatment in the justice system--both negative and positive. The conduct of the lacrosse team of which they were members was not admirable on the night of the incident, to say the least. And there are so many other victims of prosecutorial misconduct in this country who never get the high-priced legal representation and the high-profile, high-minded vindication that it strikes me as just a bit unseemly to heap praise and sympathy on these particular men
.
Mike Wise of the Washington Post:

Just because these players aren't felons, let's not instantly transform them into martyrs. It's okay to find middle ground in the good-and-evil spectrum, no matter what a certain D.A. tells you.
Media critic and Breitbart scourge Howard Kurtz:

The three players were not choir boys -- the team had, after all, invited a pair of strippers to a midnight party -- but they hardly deserved the national scorn of being loudly trumpeted as accused rapists.


Further examples can be found here for the Washington Post and here and here for Selena Robert of the New York Times.

Roberts provides another interesting insight into media double standards. Breitbart's mistake apparently puts him beyond the pale now and forever. Roberts's disgracefull performance brought out the protective side of her reporter friends.

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