Brent Bozell has a myopic NewsBusters post:
This morning, in the aftermath of the unspeakable Colorado massacre that claimed at least 12 innocent American lives and injured dozens more, ABC “news” investigative reporter Brian Ross appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America and made the outrageous, irresponsible, and completely unfounded claim that the alleged gunman, 24-year-old Jim Holmes, is a member of the Tea Party. Apparently Ross has learned absolutely nothing from the media’s disgraceful rush to judgment and dissemination of misinformation following the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in January 2011.
[…]
That’s twice now that the “news” media have falsely implicated the Tea Party in murder.In a moment that demanded clarity of thought and purpose, Ross rushed to slander those with whom he does not agree politically, exposing the depths and darkness of his political prejudices. Shame on Brian Ross, and shame on ABC News for not yet demanding he look directly into the camera and beg forgiveness for politicizing this terrible event. Ross’ meek Twitter apology is a cynically insincere slap in the face to us all.
Unmentioned in Bozell’s post: A rush to judgment by the biased right-wing media he loves.
in a post at Breitbart.com, editor Joel Pollak declared that the accused shooter, James Holmes, “registered as a Democrat on June 14, 2011. He registered from an address in La Plata County, Colorado, and his status is listed as ‘inactive.'” Pollak laughably asserted that “There are certainly more facts in our documents than in ABC News’ irresponsible speculations.”
Pollak, meanwhile, attacked Ross and ABC for their error, and even admitted that ABC has issued a “straightforward apology.” By contrast, Pollak issued only a correction and no apology.
It wasn’t until a full five hours later that Pollak started to backtrack from his false accusation, finally conceding that “the suspect may, in fact, not have been registered to vote.”
Where’s Bozell’s outrage over this? Why is it OK in his mind to smear Democrats but not conservatives? Shouldn’t Joel Pollak issue the very same abject apology Bozell demands from Brian Ross?
If he won’t treat Pollak the same as Ross, Bozell is nothing but a coward and a hypocrite. But we knew that already, didn’t we?