I haven't followed this story very far, but the basics seem like a Dallas area Fox reporter tasked with covering a case where a guy getting robbed repeatedly shot some folks who looked like robbers basically inserted herself in the story. Rather than gather information, she decided to reproach him from all the way up in the air - where her nose seems to be - and ask a bunch of questions that were statements accusing him of being bloodthirsty and so on - the normal above-it-all position against self defense which boils down to "My ethics are so high that I reject violence even at the cost of your property or life."

It doesn't surprise me much. Though I'm the son and grandson of reporters (two grandparents; one parent), they were all print people and print journalists, though themselves inclined to snobbishness, are much more down to earth than televised talking heads, if one can credit what reporters themselves say (this could be jealousy; on the other hand, who argues for the regular-joe qualities of television anchors? Dan Rather? Peter Jennings? Geraldo Rivera?). I've gone out on stories with one parent trying to gather opinions about an event - Israel's actions in Lebanon at some point in the eighties - and don't remember anything about a) imposing ourselves upon the people we asked questions or b) trying to cause the people we question to wither in the light of our morally superior glory.

However, my own experience post-2000 with reporters largely confirms the right-wing stereotype of (psuedo) journos: stuck on themselves, biased, and imperious. At an anti-protest I went to with ProtestWarrior a reporter was present who couldn't understand why folks in my crowd suggested she might be biased (could it have been her clipboard covered with OUT OF IRAQ NOW and NO WAR FOR OIL type stickers?). Or perhaps the local news guy who shoved a camera in my face at a bus stop and made statements about the war posed as questions ("Since Iraq has now fallen to our forces, isn't it time to get out of Iraq?"). At no time did he ask me if I wanted to answer his leading-the-witness questions. I did not look at the camera or make eye contact. I said I wasn't the Secretary of State or the Secretary of Defense and he would get a better answer from one of them. I doubt that he used the footage of me because I did what I could to make it unusable.

That a grown man breaks down and cries at the bullying of a windbag in padded shoulders is pretty sad, though, but I imagine, contrary to the story she was trying to write, he wasn't a bloodthirsty bastard; he was probably a repeat victim who just wanted it to stop. Another reason this may have turned out how it did in her confrontation (not "interview") was the old thing about not being able to punch a woman in the mouth.

My best advice in dealing with reporters comes from an aunt who had been in the Quartermaster Corps. She said at the time of the first news coverage of the "don't-ask don't-tell" policy that she had been coached to deal with reporters by answering questions slowly and with a lot of pauses or "uhhh"s; they quickly get disgusted and go look for someone more telegenic and articulate.

A wise policy, says I.

Labels: Media, Talking heads, Windbags with cameras

So, here's something interesting.

There's this guy who's promoting jihaddist Islam on his blog. He's doing it from North Carolina (I believe he's currently a citizen there). You can make up the rest on your own, but it's just about as clean-cut a case of free speech as I've ever seen.
I'm pretty sure it's not treason, so there isn't much anyone can (or should) do. Any thoughts though?