OPINION:
In “Mayor eulogizes officer as cops outside turn backs” (Web, Jan. 4) The Associated Press shows us how not to report a story. In the very first paragraph, the story refers to the officers who turned their backs on the mayor as “repeating a stinging display of scorn for the mayor.” Paragraph two starts off with “[t]he show of disrespect” and adds later that “[t]he gesture among officers added to tensions between the mayor and rank-and-file police even though he sought to quiet them.”
I am impressed with the ability of these two AP writers to reach into the minds of the officers and come out with “scorn.” Not “disappointment,” “frustration” or even “disillusionment,” but “scorn.” The writers are even able, apparently, to look into the future and know that the acts of the officers will add “to tensions.” In fact, the mayor’s role in this “tension” predates the Michael Brown and Eric Garner incidents.
This article does not report, it editorializes. How is it that in some cases, acts are “protests” and in other cases, they are deemed “disrespect”? Calling for the killing and assaulting of police officers apparently fall into the first camp, but the turning away from the mayor comes under the second.
This article should have been sent back to The Associated Press with a note to get a real journalist to rewrite it.
ROBERT POGGI
Alexandria
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