Fox News Watch panelists on Saturday named some villains concerning last week's tragedy in Tucson.
Aside from the shooter himself, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, and Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos were mentioned for their terrible coverage of this awful event (video follows with transcript and commentary):
JON SCOTT, HOST: The media is always looking for heroes and sometimes villains in a case like this. Who made the list?
LYNN SWEET, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES: Well, number one the only one on my list of villains is the shooter, and his motivations are still being looked into.
SCOTT: And he deserves to be there. Bill?
BILL MCGOWAN: I would also say the shooter, but I’d also say that Paul Krugman in introducing to the media bloodstream the idea that this was political before any facts were known was a disservice to the broader understanding of the story. Even though he's an opinion columnist, he should not have been putting that out there that quickly.
SCOTT: Judy?
JUDITH MILLER, FOX NEWS: And in that same category, Markos Moulitsas at the Daily Kos, who announced immediately without any facts at all, “Mission accomplished, Sarah Palin.”
SCOTT: But there are lots of columnists who, you know, speculated on what the President should say, the nation needed healing, that kind of thing.
PINKERTON: Yeah, I mean, just read the column and decide yourself if he went over the board of saying, “Look, this is a tragedy, but here’s how, do what Clinton did, but only do it better.”
We at NewsBusters agree with this assessment, as we chronicled the misdeeds of all three media members:
- Newsweek's Jonathan Alter Gives Obama Advice on Exploiting Tucson Tragedy for Political Gain
- Paul Krugman Blames Giffords Shooting on Palin, Limbaugh and Beck
- Moulitsas's dishonor can be found in the above-referenced Krugman piece
On the other hand, one could make the case that it's wrong to only mention these three as the coverage of this event was universally atrocious.
