peterms Posted April 18, 2013 Share Posted April 18, 2013 What the **** is wrong with the New York Post. Absolute scumbags! These guys were never suspects, they are just two guys watching the race who happen to have dark skin. The post editors don't give a ****... I quite liked this response. Is the New York Post Edited by a Bigoted Drunk Who **** Pigs? This morning, the New York Post published on its front page a photo of two spectators near the Boston Marathon finish line, one wearing a backpack and one with a duffel bag slung at his side, under the headline "BAG MEN." "Feds seek these two pictured at Boston Marathon," the giant subhead added. The two had nothing to do with the bombing. One of them, whose face is clearly shown on the front page, is a 17-year-old high-school runner. They were among the many bag-toting people whose images were being studied by the internet hive-mind yesterday, and there was no good reason to think they were the bombers. Yet there they were, on every newsstand in New York: "Feds seek these two." As it has been all week, the New York Post was wrong. And as it has all week, the Post denied being wrong. This afternoon—after the Post had run a story conceding that the two were not suspects—Col Allan, the paper's editor, issued a statement defending the front page: We stand by our story. The image was emailed to law enforcement agencies yesterday afternoon seeking information about these men, as our story reported. We did not identify them as suspects. This is legalistic horseshit. In small type, the cover did say that "there is no direct evidence linking them to the crime, but authorities want to identify them." But it was the front page image in the newspaper. The whole point of putting them on the cover was to imply that these two—rather than the dozens of other backpack-bearing figures being scrutinized yesterday—were under serious suspicion. A normal newspaper editor—someone who wanted a scoop yet was concerned about embarrassing the paper or harming an innocent person—would not have slapped that picture on Page One without some deep underlying confidence that the two were serious suspects, and that the absence of "direct evidence" was a temporary condition. There is no sign that Col Allan had such confidence. Given all the surrounding discussion and the shaky performance of the Post and its law-enforcement sources, one might even conclude that to have slapped the photo on the front page, an editor would have had to have been cripplingly stupid, cripplingly reckless, or both. We do not know for sure that Col Allan is cripplingly stupid and reckless. We may have heard from sources that Col Allan is stupid and reckless. But we do not know it, so we are not saying it. Sources have also suggested that Col Allan may drink to excess, but we have no direct knowledge that he is an alcoholic, or that he was drunk at any time that he was guiding the Post through its various blunders in the marathon coverage. Col Allan may have been too drunk to recognize the mistakes that the Post was making—say, to see that it was publishing a front-page photo of young man carrying a royal-blue duffel bag when the authorities were saying the bombs had been in black bags. That is a mistake that a drunk person could conceivably have made, but we do not know that Col Allan was drunk when the Post made it. The Post had previously identified an innocent Saudi as a suspect before it decided to put this brown-skinned teenager on the front page. The back-to-back focus on innocent people of non-European ancestry could imply that the Post is systematically hostile to nonwhite people, and that the paper's editors are so wedded to the notion that all Muslims are terrorists that they literally do not care which Muslim or "Muslim-looking" person they happen to be targeting on any particular day. We are not saying that Col Allan, motivated by bigotry, is intentionally trying to use the Post to stir up hostility against Muslims. We do not know that Col Allan is a racist. The evidence may suggest that he is a racist, but we are not saying that Col Allan is a racist. It does seem clear, based on the flow of images and facts through Internet and the media yesterday, that the New York Post found itself sewed to the far end of an informational Human Centipede—evidently beginning with a crowd photo published on Deadspin, passing through Reddit and 4chan and Reddit and Reddit, being passed on to the investigators actively working the Boston case, then trickling through gossip-mongering New York law-enforcement officials, till it flowed over Col Allan's taste buds. But we are not drawing any conclusions about that. Perhaps Col Allan and the New York Post are having an incredibly unlucky week. Perhaps the worthlessness of every single scoop the Post has had—its inability even to get the body count straight—does not prove that the editor is a booze-addled, race-baiting, information-illiterate moron who has neither the common sense nor the journalistic skills to avoid repeatedly humiliating his newspaper. We would not say that, any more than we would say that Col Allan **** pigs. He is from Australia; if he were to engage in bestiality, it's much more likely that it would be with sheep. But we are not saying Col Allan **** sheep, either. It could be that Col Allan **** pigs or sheep. We do not know. It would be irresponsible to speculate. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted April 18, 2013 Share Posted April 18, 2013 Meanwhile, the Islamophobia stoked by the press has its drearily predictable outcome. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bronx/bx_idiots_beat_up_arab_in_revenge_76qKozmZwDUpLUbacqqP3O Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheDon Posted April 18, 2013 Share Posted April 18, 2013 I'd be grateful if our Bostonian posters could de-bunk the following claim (for the benefit of a few former colleagues posting on Facebook): Do certain bars in Boston serve drinks called the "car bomb" and "kill a Brit"? My default reaction is to call BS, but I've never been and some people are claiming first hand knowledge... Cheers I had to stop an American girl I know from ordering a round of Irish car bombs in the yard of ale. It took me ages to convince her that trying to order them anywhere in England was a bad idea. She just didn't understand what was so bad about them, even after I'd explained she was sat in a pub the IRA bombed it was still just a "harmless drink". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LockStockVilla Posted April 18, 2013 Share Posted April 18, 2013 Well here are the suspects in a photo released by the FBI Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LockStockVilla Posted April 18, 2013 Share Posted April 18, 2013 Can't be arsed to sugar coat. The way I see it, there are far more destructive and tragic events going on in the middle east at the hands of the US. I find it astonishing that such events are lucky to get 3 minutes worth of coverage on any UK news outlet, yet the Boston bombing gets extended treatment by the BBC and ITV, blow by blow action on the 24hr news channels, and multiple front pages across the written press. I guess when the people are Muslim and in a 'warzone' (one that has been tragically enforced on millions of innocent people) it's not so bad. Just curious if you felt the same way about the 7/7 attacks and the subsequent media coverage? After all, Britain has a military footprint in Iraq and Afghanistan not only recently, but historically... Errr well 7/7 happened in the UK so it would only be natural for the UK media to cover it in such 'depth'. Last time I checked Boston MA isn't in the UK..... If you're asking what I think the greater tragedy is then of course what has happened in the middle-east is more tragic than 7/7 in my book. But there is a link historically/culturally and also international relations wise between the USA and the UK, hence the heavy media coverage in the UK. To a majority of the UK, I feel like this is at least somewhat relevant because if this happens in the USA, there is just as likely a chance something bad could happen in the UK, god forbid. Not saying what happens in the Mid East isn't bad, just that most Westerners find it hard to relate to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CI Posted April 18, 2013 Share Posted April 18, 2013 Well here are the suspects in a photo released by the FBI Well they look very suspicious Is the NYPost a Murdoch rag ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LockStockVilla Posted April 18, 2013 Share Posted April 18, 2013 Well here are the suspects in a photo released by the FBI Well they look very suspicious Is the NYPost a Murdoch rag ? Yup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kwan Posted April 18, 2013 Share Posted April 18, 2013 Somebody's bound to recognize them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CI Posted April 18, 2013 Share Posted April 18, 2013 They don't look like they've gone to watch / support a marathon do they Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark8691 Posted April 19, 2013 Share Posted April 19, 2013 Yet one unites Americans and leads to expensive wars. And the other just seems to lead to lots of shoulder shrugging and apathy from many Americans. ??? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post 8pints Posted April 19, 2013 Popular Post Share Posted April 19, 2013 A lot of bold statements being made in this thread. 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
legov Posted April 19, 2013 Share Posted April 19, 2013 Yet one unites Americans and leads to expensive wars. And the other just seems to lead to lots of shoulder shrugging and apathy from many Americans. ??? This. Times a **** million. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted April 19, 2013 Share Posted April 19, 2013 What the **** is wrong with the New York Post. Absolute scumbags! These guys were never suspects, they are just two guys watching the race who happen to have dark skin. The post editors don't give a ****... It's our version of The Sun...toilet paper, nothing more Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
legov Posted April 19, 2013 Share Posted April 19, 2013 What the **** is wrong with the New York Post. Absolute scumbags! These guys were never suspects, they are just two guys watching the race who happen to have dark skin. The post editors don't give a ****... It's our version of The Sun...toilet paper, nothing more They always seem to be tabloids, don't they? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kiwivillan Posted April 19, 2013 Share Posted April 19, 2013 What the **** is wrong with the New York Post. Absolute scumbags! These guys were never suspects, they are just two guys watching the race who happen to have dark skin. The post editors don't give a ****... It's our version of The Sun...toilet paper, nothing more NZ Herald ran with this as their main World news spread today. In the corner they had a small article about several US media organisations coming out with false unverified stories. In their online addition they had the story about the two men in above photo having nothing to do with it and that many had published it ... except failed to mention themselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted April 19, 2013 Share Posted April 19, 2013 I heard an interview with one of the two falsely accused by the NY Post, and he was almost having a nervous breakdown, the poor kid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted April 19, 2013 Share Posted April 19, 2013 (edited) Great, a university cop (M.I.T.) has been shot dead across the river in Cambridge, gunman on the loose...makes you wonder if it's connected to the bombings... Edited April 19, 2013 by maqroll Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P3te Posted April 19, 2013 Share Posted April 19, 2013 Somebody's bound to recognize them One of them is apparently a kid who went missing a month ago and, bizarely, the FBI put a large amount of people on the case across 5 states - which isn't normally done I believe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted April 19, 2013 Share Posted April 19, 2013 Somebody's bound to recognize them One of them is apparently a kid who went missing a month ago and, bizarely, the FBI put a large amount of people on the case across 5 states - which isn't normally done I believe Link? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted April 19, 2013 Share Posted April 19, 2013 Err....more gunfire and explosions one town over in Watertown http://livewire.wcvb.com/Event/117th_Running_of_Boston_Marathon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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