Selective Character Assassination by the Media
Background information about Michael Brown, the dead 18-year-old in Ferguson, Missouri, has been trickling out. The National Journal is upset with this “character assassination by the police and by the media.”
Character assassination by the media? Say it ain’t so.
In 2008, the Huffington Post had no problem publishing photos of Sarah Palin as a bimbo in a bikini, even though the photo was a fake. Then there is Dan Rather, of CBS news, broadcasting a false story about George W. Bush and his National Guard service. The Washington Post had no concern over publishing “George Zimmerman’s relevant past.” But they were quick to remind us in the same article that “[w]hat is not relevant is Trayvon’s past.” Seems only certain characters are fair game for assassination, but others are off limits.
The National Journal was also critical of a Washington Post report stating that “[a]t the time of his death, Brown had marijuana in his system.” They reassure us that marijuana is not “[i]ndicative of a criminal mind (as Coloradans and Washingtonians would attest).” Tell that to the dead wife of a Colorado man who shot her after eating cannabis. Perhaps it is very relevant.
If the media are truly concerned about leaked information or character assassination, they should be the ones leading the charge to keep quiet and let the legal and review processes play out. Instead, the Washington Post had this little nugget to remind readers of the racial aspect of this case. Describing police officer Darren Wilson’s neighborhood as a “mostly white city of 11,000 people about 18 miles southwest of mostly black Ferguson” sounds like a bit of not so subtle “character assassination,” but not the type that the National Journal would be upset about.
Brian C Joondeph, M.D., MPS, a Denver-based physician, is an advocate of smaller, more efficient government. Twitter @retinaldoctor.
Ad Free / Commenting Login
FOLLOW US ON
Recent Articles
- Trump-O-Phobia Drives Some Americans to Questionable Greener Pastures Overseas
- A Businessman and a Brilliant Strategist
- A Remarkable Headline for a Fascinating Story
- Democrats Unmask Themselves
- How Mexico Became China’s Trojan Horse in U.S. Trade
- Covid Redux: The Bird Flu Scare
- A Taste of the Swamp
- Do We Have 677 Unelected Presidents?
- Global Relations beyond the Prime Directive
- The Democrat Party: The Enemy Within?
Blog Posts
- The CDC website really needs to update its COVID protocols
- Hands in your back pocket
- Birthright citizenship: The facts
- ‘She’s my little Musk coupe’
- The Biden White House mixed it up with not one but two autopens
- The Shakespeare National Trust determines that Shakespeare is ‘not to be’
- Carville tells Democrats to quit making asses of themselves
- About that Texas congressman who called the transgender member of Congress 'Mister' ...
- A federal district court judge erases Trump’s ability to rid the country of enemy aliens
- In the UK, rape gangs are OK, pictures of women sans hijabs not so much
- Bacha Bazi still being practiced in Afghanistan; young boys sexually abused
- UN judge convicted of forcing a woman into indentured servitude
- What are capital gains, really?
- Trump begins restoring law and order