In one of the most self-indulgent and masturbatory front pages stories ever, the Kansas City Star acted as if they were revealing news to their (dwindling) subscriber base when they noted the flimsy, flawed case against some local po'folk after 6 firefighters were tragically killed.
The story followed the same strategy as most of articles from The Star . . . They attempted to "own" a story that has been out there for more than a decade.
Thing is, anybody who knows a thing about Kansas City history remembers that this case was weak from the beginning. Even worse, here's the tragic sin by The Star:
THE KANSAS CITY MEDIA WAS COMPLICIT IN FRAMING A BUNCH OF POOR WHITE PEOPLE BY FAILING TO ASK ALMOST ANY QUESTIONS ON THEIR BEHALF!!!
Put simply, for prosecutors this case was a "slam dunk" because the defendants had a history of petty crime and nobody wanted to stand up for them . . . This includes a great deal of the editorial board for The Star. TV news media was just as guilty given that they despise research nearly as much as I do . . . But rewriting the history on this one won't do anyone any good. The fact remains that when big media was running things without question in this town, they were a tyrannical force who never liked to have their authority questioned. The same is pretty much true today only their power is waning and in retrospect the results of their mostly bigoted coverage is marked by a slew of injustices from Kansas City's past.
JJ Maloney's aids infested corpse contributed to this story.
ReplyDelete