"-=jd=-" wrote in message
8...


I'm thinking the media has been duped, not by malice, but by sloppy
journalism in the race to be first with the breaking news.

I can't find anything that names an authority official as providing the
initial reports of the victim wearing a padded coat, jumping the
tunstiles,
etc. I *have* seen it attributed to anonymous "initial eyewitness
reports".
For all I know, perhaps Jason Blair provided the info. I sure can't find
anything similar to a clear, direct attribution to any "Inspector Joe
Schmoe-Clouseau of Scotland Yard".

The first round of reports were good, in that they gave the source of the
"padded jacket" as a witness, in this story the witness is named:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4706913.stm

A different eyewitness in the same story says the guy "appeared to have a
bomb belt and wires coming out". Oh, well.


The confusion came later, and oftentimes just hours later. News columnists
were among those most eager to jumble the few known facts with unreliable
eyewitness accounts and jump to their conclusions.

That's the liberal media for ya.





Next, I hear that Scotland Yard, during their on-going investigation,
briefed the family with the information that has been leaked. That tells
me
that the Yard was not going to, and could not, cover anything up if they
were keeping the family informed.

So what gives? Did a reporter grab some commuter schmuck at the scene and
swallow the initial reports (about the padded jacket; attempting to elude;
refusing to comply with officer orders) without verifying it? Then that
one
account made the network rounds until it mushroomed into a near
conspiracy?

The reporters don't have to verify a story. They ought to verify their
source. Such as -- was the eyewitness really at the station? Does the
source seem given to fantasy? Nearly all journalism is some sort of story
retelling.

But, in this case, it seems the "opinion makers" were the worst offenders in
taking the babblings of shocked eyewitnesses as God's Honest Truth.



Is it possible for the media to make a traqic event even worse?



Yes, and we have yet to hear much from the lawyers, politicians and
bureaucrats.

Frank Dresser