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Long ago, while I was working in Charlotte, the editors in my newsroom decided to do one of those sure-to-win-awards projects in which they would use hard statistics, personal interviews and a strong spine of new poll data to answer a big question.
Last week, Dr. Kermit Gosnell was arrested for the murders of eight people. Now, normally if anyone in the country is accused of murdering 8 people (and, in fact, a reading of the grand jury report indicates he is suspected in the murders of untold more, and I do mean untold), that would be big news. This has not been big news. It’s been covered, but not in the way the 24-hour news cycle covers, say, a missing blonde woman.
Anti-government protests are shaking Egypt right now. It’s incredibly hard to get good information about what is going on there since the U.S.-backed Mubarak government (we give them over $1.3 billion annually, I believe) has shut down social media and regular media. Here’s just one recent example:
This is one of those religion stories that, on one level, sounds perfectly logical to one set of readers. At the same time, other people may read the same story and want to laugh to keep from crying or, in a few cases, readers may want to laugh, then cry, then bash their heads into a wall.
More than a few GetReligion readers dropped us a line or two to mention the Foreign Policy report about a recent Seymour Hersh speech. The Washington Post took interest in the speech, too. Here’s how reporter Paul Farhi covered it in his article “Hersh rebuked on ‘crusaders’:
I’m not the toolish type of gym rat. “I have never intentionally used steroids. Never. Ever. Period.” I’ve also never used them accidentally — and you wouldn’t suspect otherwise. But between playing basketball a few times a week and lifting weights two or three days a week, I’m in the gym pretty regularly.
I’m sorry to bring this up, but it’s time – once again – to wrestle with the complicated reality that is GOP superstar (sort of) Willard Mitt Romney and the challenges he presents to mainstream reporters who cover his, at this time, unofficial candidacy for the White House in ’12.
