The right-wing media had a fit when the Denver Post removed a statement about Colorado school shooter Karl Pierson, as claimed by another student, that he was a “socialist.”
NewsBusters’ Tom Blumer joined the outrage in a Dec. 16 post, followed by what he claimed was Post senior editor Lee Ann Colacioppo’s “lame, condescending attempt at a defense.” But Blumer reprinted only part of Colacioppo’s response to criticism, the statement that “We decided not to have another student apply a label to the shooter — a label the student likely didn’t even understand.”
But as Wonkette notes, Colacioppo offered a fuller response in a second tweet: “We instead chose to use more concrete descriptions such as ‘he belittled Republicans.'”
In other words, Colacioppo was stating that she wanted to go beyond a label to the specifics of Pierson’s beliefs — what most people would call responsible journalism.
But Blumer doesn’t need the full context to rip into the newspaper for not confirming his preconceived biases by slapping a unsubstantiated label supplied by a single student: “Colacioppo’s defense indicates that her paper would rather insult students, their high school, and Post readers’ intelligence rather than have the S-word (and, presumably, communism, as will be seen shortly) appear to be associated with violent and deadly acts. What’s the point in subscribing to a publication such as this?”
And what’s the point in reading a writer like Blumer who is so biased he can’t be bothered to fully research what he’s writing about?