The Myth of the Hunt: How the media has misfired on the Cheney accident

Time ^ | Friday, Feb. 17, 2006 | WALTER KIRN

[claudiustg]

Is this part BS shoveling contest?

[ElkGroveDan]

watching the Washington press corps cover a story that hinges on a chaotic Texas quail shoot is like watching Prince Charles attempt a native dance.

Perfect!

[Luke21]

This is manufactured crap designed to cover for the media's poor behavior. Only partisan Democrats have enjoyed the shots taken at Cheney. (No pun intended)

[Hardastarboard]

(quail hunting has an aristocratic tone that fosters a lot of ribbing about poor marksmanship) to the mortal anguish of hitting a human being. The sport is dangerous, which heightens its thrill, but it's a civilized level of danger that's usually manageable through good equipment, experienced companions, and traditional codes of conduct. The emotions behind these codes are old and fixed: pride and shame. Like a mountain climbing expedition, a hunting trip is an excuse-free zone. Once a person picks up his gun, he is that gun. And whatever that gun causes.

WTF? Has this guy ever actually BEEN quail hunting? My favorite quail hunting memory is of walking through a field in Kentucky on an unusually warm winter day with an old Model 48 Remington 12 guage, and two good old boys with beers following me watching just for fun. This guy makes it sound like quail hunters are sitting on the porch of the manor, shooting from silver inlaid rests.

[Erik Latranyi]

The VP story is really about a lazy press. The Washington Press core is upset because they story was not handed to them on a silver platter.

The truth is that our media is at its most lazy today.

Look at the facts.......

Shuttle Challenger Explosion. Warnings were given, but due to the 'routine' nature of launches, the media was not ready to cover the story.

Bush National Guard. Lazy fact checking led an entire news organization to go with an unsubstantiated story.

Howard Stern. You might be puzzled, but he plays crank calls made during newsworthy events where callers will fake a position within gov't and get on the air at CNN spewing falsehoods and then working Stern's name into the conversation. This is another example of poor fact-checking due to "air-it-now" mentality.

....and many more examples are available......

[LS]

Actually, I think it's a reporter who has actually hunted who knows that the press is WAY overboard on this and is trying subtly to let them know. The problem is, the press doesn't take hints.

Hell, they don't get it when someone smacks them in the face with a frying pan.

[LS]

Witchee-tai-to, to ya, Dan :)

[satchmodog9]

The press is still at it http://www.yahoo.com/s/241355

[digger48]

Though not, as promptly as he might have

THAT's where I stopped. APOLOGIZE TO WHO?????? I would bet everything my family owns, that the first words The VP said to his friend was "I'M SORRY!" Who else did he need to apologize to???

[johnny7]

Shovel some lye on that stink... phew!

[digger48]

aw geez....

[indcons]

I was amused to read USA Today's editorial on the incident; the edtors were "shocked" that VP Cheney did not inform THEM sooner. Then there was the hack on Hardboiled (MSNBC) who claimed that it was the "role" of the Washington press corps to be the messenger between the WH and the public.

[Izzy Dunne]

the responsible party apologized (though not, perhaps, as promptly as he might have)

What a ridiculous statement.
I'll wager that Cheney apologized more than once to Mr. Whittington.

He owes no one else anything.

What an arrogant, presumptive, %&#%#%&!$÷¿??ç?µ˜??å߃©???! !!!!

[jocon307]

You forgot the barf alert!

Cheney owed ONE PERSON, ONE PERSON ONLY an apology, the poor man he shot. Does anyone, ANYONE, for ONE MINUTE think he did not PROFUSELY apologize IMMEDIATELY?

In the immortal words of Al Goldstein, pornographer, and many others: Time Magazine, you s*ck!

[1rudeboy]

I liked it, and it was well-written. Some folks here might not agree with the "myth" part, but it's a nice hook for the piece.

[rellimpank]

-- the talking heads think they're good at this thing too, even though many of them don't know the difference between a twenty-eight gauge shotgun and an any-caliber rifle.--

--I like that sentence but not the following one in the article--

[BallyBill]

Watching a Bass Fishing show today, they actually showed a similar 28 gauge gun, what the shells look like inside and out and then fired the gun at a paper target 30 yards away. No bull just the facts. It was the best report on the whole incident.

[CFC__VRWC]

Bush National Guard. Lazy fact checking led an entire news organization to go with an unsubstantiated story.

It was intentionally poor fact checking, driven by partisan hatred of George Bush, which made them want to believe the story was true. So they deliberately looked the other way when the huge gaping holes in their story appeared, arrogantly assuming they could paper them over and get away with it.

That's very different that mere "lazy fact checking."

[ex-snook]

????? The pic shows hits on the right side of his face and his heart is on his left side. How is it possible to get hit on both sides?