April Come She Will, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise | @MDWorld

April 20, 2013 Martha Thomases 3 Comments

So Thursday, my deadline day, I was all set to write about the situation in Boston, and how these things always happen in April.  I take these events quite personally, because my birthday is usually in the middle of the trauma, and they not only are horrific events, but they take the attention away from me.

But then, yesterday, I got some horrible news about one of my best friends and couldn’t write.  Overnight, the situation changed.  If the column I planned to write had run, I would have looked like an idiot.  Sometimes, rarely, not being able to write is a good thing.

 

Keeping in mind that by tomorrow, everything could be entirely different again, I’m going to try to say something intelligible about crazy people and the way the news media cover them.  My current favorite comment is from Mark Evanier, who tweeted, “Can’t wait to find out the religion of the Boston bombers so we’ll know which group of bigots gets to exploit the tragedy.”

In the early days of this story (that would be Monday), when no one knew anything, the authorities rightly considered every possibility.  One of the initial people questioned was a Saudi student who was injured.  I don’t have any problems with him being questioned.  I don’t even really have a problem with him being suspected, since I would imagine there were thousands of people being suspected.  I do have a problem with him being treated differently from every other suspect, different from every other injured person.

And I certainly have a problem with the news media making assumptions – without facts – about who the terrorists were.  Chris Matthews was practically foaming at the mouth for it to be Al Quaeda.  I, myself, thought it was home-grown schmucks like Timothy McVeigh, but I didn’t say this out loud, much less on national television.  Speculation in these situations is not helpful.

I get it that the 24 hour news cycle leaves a lot of time to fill.  There is the news that is known, there are people with actual, first-hand eye-witness knowledge to talk to, and then there are still probably 47 minutes left in the hour.  I’m interested in hearing from people in law enforcement, who might know what the proper procedures are, and I’m enough of a James Bond fan to want to know how the intelligence community approaches a case.

What I don’t want is for people to talk about things that might warn the criminals about what they can expect.  And speculation.  Please stop speculating.

If you need to talk about something important, talk about my birthday.

Martha Thomases, Media Goddess, is 60.