Sunday, March 25, 2012

ON TRAYVON MARTIN STORY, PART OF THE MURDOCH MEDIA MACHINE BETRAYS THE WINGNUT CAUSE

Have you seen the cover of today's print New York Post? Notice how the Trayvon Martin case is covered:




What the cover story tells Post readers is no news to a lot of us -- we've known for a while that George Zimmerman was a vigilante wannabe -- but I'm surprised the Murdoch paper is bringing it up, and I'm even more surprised that it's the front-page story. And the headline -- "Trayvon's killer a cop wannabe on paranoid patrol." Amazing. The Post also has the story about the man who's claiming that he saw Trayvon Martin assault George Zimmerman. I'm shocked that that's not on the Post's front page.

And check out yesterday's cover:




The entirety of the right-wing media, including the rest of the Murdoch empire, could be like this -- in fact, the entire right could be like this. The right could decide that this is a case in which we can stop fighting for once.

But that's not going to happen, is it? I think it's happening at the Post only because the Post has a large non-white readership. And it's not even happening at the Post Web site, where the paranoid-Zimmerman story is buried.*

I can't imagine it happening at Fox because, for Roger Ailes to cover a story like this and not use it as an excuse to fight liberals ... well, that would make him feel like Jeremy Renner in the supermarket near the end of The Hurt Locker. Ailes can't bear not to fight us at every possible opportunity -- he certainly can't bear to acknowledge agreeing with us.

So, great -- the Post's coverage has some human decency. I'm sure that won't be allowed to spread.

*UPDATE:A point I meant to make here is that the Web site is presumably aimed at a nationwide audience, so heaven forfend it should proclaim sympathy for Trayvon Martin.

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