Some Irresponsible Media Members Wanted Too Much To Believe Hoax

The story was almost too sensational to be believed. Perhaps that was reason enough for the media to think twice about running so aggressively with this story before the police had ample opportunity to investigate the charges and, to some extent, the accuser. For many media outlets, there was a rush to judgement. For some media outlets, the opportunity to try and make Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign look bad was too tempting to pass on. For some, the opportunity to use this horrible story to help the struggling campaign of Sen. John McCain also was too good to pass up. Where is the investigative journalism? Where is the objectivity? Was there a political motivation on the part of some people to get this story out and to give it such prominent play without much of an investigation having taken place? How did we not learn from the Duke lacrosse case? Did some people let their racial prejudices make them inclined to believe this lie of a story about a young white woman attacked by some tall, menacing black man who became further enraged when he (portrayed as an Obama supporter) attacked her (a McCain supporter) as he saw a McCain bumper sticker and carved a “B” into her face. It didn’t make much since. Yet, few people vetted the story sufficiently enough. We were had. We were hoodwinked. We were victimized by our own sloppy journalism. Here is a quote from the Huffington Post story: “Part of the story is the fact that it was reported by the media,” said Sanchez. “We would not be telling the story now had it not been carried by so many outlets. As I mentioned before, it was mentioned on, as a matter of fact I have a list and not to mention names, but the initials of the news organizations are Fox News, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Newsday. And also radio talk show hosts went on their radio stations and talked ad infinitum about the story yesterday, one of them even seemingly being a braggadocio about it when he was on the air with our own Wolf Blitzer yesterday.”

Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/24/rick-sanchez-calls-out-me_n_137679.html