"Kurt Ullman" wrote in message news:3sqdnW6i8-
stuff snipped

But the idiots that the press at best condones and at worst actually
enables is where my panties get in a wad. I have some minor concerns
about the original reporting, but the REAL problem with coverage was the
studiously ignoring of the fanning of the flames, not by idiots, but by
well-known people.

Take it up with Randolph Hearst who built his fortune looking for
controversies so he could throw some gasoline on them. Sharpton & Co. are
pros when it comes to amping up a bad situation. He and others *know* that
today's news organizations thrive on "he said, she said" reporting so they
make themselves "available" to them to get their message out. As for Hearst,
IIRC, he even went after American icon Annie Oakley, claiming she was found
coked out in some seedy hotel room.

http://www.insurancethoughtleadershi...ave-in-common/

IOW, this bad behavior is nothing new because it sells newspapers.

But here serene life and national image all changed on August 11, 1908
when William Randolph Hearst ran the headline "Famous Woman Crack Shot ...
Steals to Secure Cocaine"

(Never mind the irony of the words "crack" shot and "cocaine" being used 100
years ago!)

which showed a picture of Annie when she was in her late twenties in her
famous pose of the backward shooter. The article went on to say that she was
facing a 45-day sentence in a Chicago prison for stealing money from a man's
breeches to get her fix while in fact she was far from the scene of the
alleged crime and had never used cocaine. Put bluntly, the article was an
out-an-out lie. Once the newspaper article hit the press, 55 different
newspapers picked up the story off the wire and ran similar stories. It
turned out that a woman of a similar name, Any Oakley, was the real culprit.
She was a burlesque performer whose real name was Maude Fontanella.

Unfortunately I don't see this trend disappearing any time soon and IIRC,
the Pharohs used similar tactics in the ancient world, denigrating their
enemies falsely on public carvings (like obelisks, but there's another word
for it that I can't recall) to rouse their subjects to war.

--
Bobby G.