David Waters

"Liberal Dedication in the Face of Hatred" was the lead teaser on the front page of the print edition of the Washington Post's Metro section on August 2. Inside, staff writer Jacqueline Salmon reported on Unitarian Universalist vigils held in the wake of the July 27 shooting in a Unitarian church in Knoxville, Tenn. in which two died and seven were wounded.

Salmon noted the Knoxville police chief's assertion that the shooter "hated the liberal movement." This corroborated other media reports about a letter that the shooter had left in which he expresses a visceral antipathy to liberals.

Salmon moved on to report about a gathering on July 28 at a Unitarian Congregation of Fairfax in Oakton, Va.: "Bill Welch, the congregation's minister for programs, talked about how isolating it can be to be a liberal in today's world of right-wing talk radio and conservative Christians ‘that talk about liberals as if we are bad people.'"

Salmon did not bother to quote a talk radio host or Christian conservative in response to the minister's broad-brushed charge. Nor did Salmon bother to acknowledge that the shooter at the Unitarian church, Jim Adkisson, had also rejected conservative Christianity. One of Adkisson's neighbors told The New York Times: "[Adkisson] said if you read the whole Bible, everything in it contradicts itself." Salmon didn't even bother to challenge the dubious proposition that "right-wing talk radio" is "isolating" liberals, when most major media are dominated by liberals, as documented in the new Culture and Media Institute Special Report, "Unmasking the Myths Behind the Fairness Doctrine."