More Bad Journalism
A 23 year old guy was arrested yesterday in an Ohio airport parking lot. He arrived one minute after Obama’s plane departed and drew suspicion because of his many police scanner antennas. When approached by authorities it was noted that his vehicle was equipped with a siren, lights and he was carrying (legally) a firearm.
Based on the scene and online profiling research done by a local paper and reported by Pete Williams of NBC, it appears this guy is a crazy nerd who wants to be a cop. The REAL investigation will reveal if it was anything worse, but it doesn’t appear to be as I can’t even figure out what he did to be charged with the public nuisance misdemeanor. And that’s not just me, as “official concern is very low.”
What I want to note is this line from Pete Williams’ noble report:
“The newspaper surveyed a number of different social networking sites and blogs of which McVey is a participant, and reported that he marked as favorite on his YouTube account a video that allegedly shows U.S. soldiers accidentally killing civilians in Iraq.”
That a syndicated journalist can make a lazy judgment like that based on misunderstood web terminology, then recklessly throw it into his report is scary.
Youtube is one of the top four websites on the internet. Everyone knows that a “favorite” on that site is nothing more than a bookmark or acknowledgment that the video is noteworthy. This Iraq video in question is the hugest break of the last few months in the media world. Everyone has seen it. Millions of people have added those videos as “favorites” for their own reference.
Maybe Pete Williams is new this week to news AND the internet.
If the worst you can find on a guy is his interest in a mainstream news story maybe you should move on to a beat with more substance or a new line of work.
