I was watching CNN Sunday afternoon, only for a few minutes actually. They decided to "discuss" the 65 children, mostly African-American and Hispanic, who paid to use a pool for a short period of time at a private club. From The Philadelphia Inquirer:
QUOTE: "We're all the same, except for the color of our skin," Kevina said. "But the lady said, 'What are these black kids doing here?' She was saying a lot of racist words." UNQUOTE.
The person hosting the CNN show, the "anchor," presumably, turned the story over to a woman, who the viewer can only assume has some familiarity with the actual details. One thing she said angered me, which is not common. Usually, I just laugh at how un-journalistic their presentations are. The statement included the following: "animosity on both sides." But this was not explained to the viewer in detail. Why, exactly, should anyone feel animosity towards those children? The only reason to feel animosity towards them would be that the people who threw them out of that pool are undeniably racists! It's amazing at how ridiculous these attempts at being "fair and balanced" have become. By doing so in this case, they have inadvertently made the claim that racism was in fact at work.
Will there be a retraction or "clarification?" I doubt it. Instead, it's more likely that there will be a story about how "bloggers" aren't adhering to journalistic standards. Of course, they never mention that they have a "bully pulpit" that no blogger possesses, and that they can bring a great deal of pressure to bear against a blogger, but the reverse is not true.
Source for the quotation above: http://www.philly.com/...