by Bill Kavanagh: There are so many more important news items out there this morning, but one story caught my eye, or stuck in my craw, to be more accurate, last night and now it’s starting to rumble around in inside me enough to bother my digestion. Fox News was blaring all night with a lead about a young woman in Pittsburgh who allegedly was attacked by a robber who carved a “B” (for Barack Obama?) into her cheek after noticing her McCain bumper sticker. The story is bizarre enough to attract serious amounts of airtime as we near the election and it reminds me of another story of a similar nature, from a different source. 20 years ago, I was covering a racially charged housing desegregation story in Yonkers, NY when a woman who had rather courageously spoken up in favor of fair housing in front of a hostile crowd later reported a swastika being spray-painted on her apartment door. The pictures and headlines following her tale were chilling. The area news was filled with the story for some time, until she was later caughtpainting another swastika herself, then reporting it to police as a hate crime.
That young woman’s warped cry for attention did some damage to the fair housing cause locally and distracted the public from the real and important issues before them, while worsening racial and religious divisions already under stress.
I have long been expecting a very dirty, racially charged end of campaign this year and the way Fox News was playing up the story of the young McCain volunteer’s alleged attack and disfigurement is exactly the sort of thing I have been afraid of. Rather than spending these last two weeks of the campaign on final issue recaps, we are at risk of activating all the hatemongers, of every stripe, who wish to divide people and sow fear as we head to the polls.
Pittsburgh police are casting fresh doubt on the young woman’s tale of horror and I hope that people in the media, both mainstream and in the blogosphere, will demand less hyperbole and sensationalism and more sober reflection on the serious questions we face. As we come down to the wire, we are a country besieged by an enormous fiscal crisis and two wars. Let's keep our eye on what's important.
I know this sort of plea doesn’t drive readers to a website, but hopefully we aren’t beyond the point of reason and will eschew the sort of hype that can only give comfort to those who would rather put fear and division ahead of hope and and aspiration as we cast our ballots.
Whatever the truth is in this Pittsburgh story, let’s understand that it’s only a sad sidelight to serious business.
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