With Extreme Prejudice - How ABC News "investigates" a horrific crime

Wall Street Journal.com ^ | July 20, 2012 | James Taranto

[Wuli]

"snip..Los Angeles police officer and three bodybuilder friends.snip..arrested for..snip..punching and kicking a New York man.snip.on West Hollywood's Restaurant Row," the Los Angeles Times reported July 30, 1991.

snip

We're glad this was only a local story. Had it been a national one, ...reporter Brian Ross might have blamed us on national television.

"Those arrested along with Defoe were Edward Spencer, 29, Ken Spencer, 27, and James Taranto, 27, all of Staten Island, N.Y.," the Times report added.

That James Taranto, you will be relieved to learn, was not the one who became your humble columnist.

snip

Men named James Holmes are much more numerous: HMOM.com puts the count at 2,909..

snip

....here is how Brian Ross, ABC News's chief investigative correspondent, reported the story this morning on "Good Morning America" with George Stephanopoulos:

Stephanopoulos: I'm going to go to Brian Ross. You've been investigating the background of Jim Holmes here. You found something that might be significant.

Ross: There's a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colo., page on the Colorado Tea party site as well, talking about him joining the Tea Party last year. Now, we don't know if this is the same Jim Holmes. But it's Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colo.

Stephanopoulos: OK, we'll keep looking at that. Brian Ross, thanks very much.

This would be ..understandable--although still outrageous--if the shooter had an uncommon name like James Taranto. With a common name, however, the likelihood is quite high that a match like this one is false.

snip

It is ..reasonable to interpret Ross's hasty unsubstantiated report as an expression of hostility--bigotry--toward the Tea Party and those who share its values, which are traditional American ones. ABC's carelessness .. is in sharp contrast with the way the mainstream media treat criminal suspects who are black or Muslim...

snip

[Wuli]

At least ABC doesn't disappoint us or their admirers and operate as the unbiased news forum that they are not.

[Forgotten Amendments]

Somebody see if there’s a Brian Ross in NAMBLA and see how he likes it.

[doug from upland]

NOTE: Hmmmmmmm. They could have misspelled the first name. That is a common mistake. LOL

Man convicted of 2nd degree rape
Sentenced April 26
By JEREMIAH O’HAGAN Staff Reporter

The victims’ names in this story have been changed to protect their privacy.

Bryan Ross of Camano Island was found guilty of second-degree rape by forcible compulsion in Island County Superior Court last month. In laymen’s terms, Ross took his victim by whatever means necessary, against her will.

She was not the first.

Ross’s April 26 sentencing will hopefully bring his victims closure — the minimum recommended sentencing for second-degree rape is 78 months. It will at least close a case Island County Sheriff Mark Brown and Detective Laura Price called “a big deal.”

[DNME]

(From the story ...)

In those cases they take great pains not to perpetuate stereotypes, sometimes at the cost of withholding or obscuring relevant facts such as the physical description of a suspect who is still at large or the ideological motive for a crime.

**********************

I've bitched to my local daily newspaper for exactly this "politically correct" problem.

They'll report on some crime and state that police are looking for a "middle-age male, 5-foot-2, weighing 150 pounds and wearing a dark blue jacket."

Uhhhh ... how about the RACE of the suspect, you idiots? Think that might narrow the search or should we suspiciously eye all middle-age males with that height and weight? Jeez!

[djwright]

In Seattle there was a guy who killed 2 people with a paring knife. Went on the run and killed two old ladies with the hoe they were using in their garden. He was going in to houses looking for a hide out. He broke into one house and sat down in a chair and they drove him out with a baseball bat.

He was still on the run in my neighborhood and the news would not mention that he was black. That is useful info.

But they were very concerned when he held-up in a house with a gun (note that he had already killed 4 people without a gun)....... PC idiots are a danger to everyone.

[SeminoleCounty]

Should we be surprised that ABC lies? They were the same network that claimed George Zimmerman was “white” and “not injured by Trayvon Martin”...which turned out to be outright lies

[Forgotten Amendments]

That reminds me of watching boxing. “That’s Ali in the white trunks and Quarry in the red trunks...”