Suspicious ferry rider debacle: O'Reilly, Connelly speaking much but saying little

Posted on May 6, 2008 by Seattle Crime Blogger
Back on Veteran's Day, notorious FOX News commentator Bill O'Reilly offered his take on the "suspicious" ferry passengers we covered earlier this morning. Here's the clip (discussion of the P.I. comes in at around 50 seconds):



Before proceeding, let's be clear on a few points:
  • We at Seattle Crime Blog have a collective loathing for Mr. O'Reilly and his supposed "no spin zone";
  • the tactics of ordering cameras upon Roger Oglesby after he had already declined to comment is an extremely sleazy thing to do;
  • Jesse Waters' questions are certainly not "fair" or "balanced"; and
  • bringing in D. Parvaz's totally unrelated statement that "church is a repressive institution" when it has nothing to do with the matter at hand just makes you look like a bunch of ideology-driven assholes...which, of course, you very well may be.
But (and there's always a but)...O'Reilly was right about one thing: the paper was failing its audience by taking the "morally righteous" route. Of course, the whole debacle has got P.I. columnist Joel Connelly on a roll. In this morning's paper, he blasts O'Reilly for his handling of the Oglesby "interview." Fair enough; if Joel stopped there, we might be still rooting for him.

Instead, what follows is a sad case of misplaced judgment. He says:
No crime was committed. No illegal act by the two men was ever alleged or attributed. No effort to sabotage Washington's marine highway was ever found.

The two men were identified and photographed by a fellow passenger for a simple reason: They looked Middle Eastern.
First of all, the men were photographed by the ferry captain, not a fellow passenger. And it wasn't because they "looked Middle Eastern," as the author is so quick to suggest. It was because of what the Times calls "unusual behavior — namely that they were taking pictures below deck, in areas that don't hold much interest for most tourists."

But at this point the author is too far into his epiphany for it to matter...after all, we're just reaching the thesis:
Should a newspaper — in a free country, proud of its history as a melting pot — be stereotyping people as "suspicious" by the pigment of their skin?
Joel is missing the point completely. The newspaper isn't stereotyping at all; they're reporting (or, more accurately in this case, failing to report) on relevant local news, news that people in the community are talking about and that impacts them directly. Ultimately, such reporting should be the central focus of a respected daily paper...no matter what the political leanings of their editorial board.
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