Jay Grodner keyed a $2400 side-to-side gash into Sgt. Mike McNulty's car. When confronted, Grodner berated McNulty, who was getting ready to redeploy to Iraq, with anti-military epithets, even telling the Marine he was too “small” to be a “soldier" (sic).
Milblogger Blackfive wrote about the lack of media coverage (bold mine throughout):
In case you were wondering, this case was brought to my attention and I tried, TRIED, to get anyone in the media to take the ball and run with it. Offered exclusivity, contacts, photos, reports, etc.
For a variety of reasons, no one wanted it.
Online though, the story blazed through military and conservative sites, gathering outrage and infamy, but what was the major media's coverage?
Other than Jeff Kass's two opinion columns in local paper Chicago Tribune and a mention by Lou Dobbs, the media largely ignored the story. Rival Chicago Sun-Times didn't even cover it. MSNBC, Yahoo, CBS News, ABCNews, the LA Times and the Washington Post ignored it. So did the New York Times, which recently skewed statistics to paint Iraq and Afghanistan vets as unstable killing machines.
MSNBC host Keith Olbermann also ignored the story. The guy who hyped Haditha as a war crime and massacre without an investigation or trial, didn't even make Grodner Worst Person in the World. Eh, I'm sure that Media Matters stitched together another outrage about Fox News which was much more important.
There was even drama in the courtroom, which the media usually love:
Grodner was late to court for the second time in the case. Grodner called Assistant State's Attorney Patrick Kelly, (Marine Corps/Vietnam 1969-1972), informing Kelly that he would be late to court.
"He wanted to avoid the media," Kelly said Friday. "So he's coming a half hour late."
"I don't run my courtroom that way!" responded Judge William O'Malley, ordering Grodner be arrested and held on $20,000 bail when he arrived. Finally, Grodner strolled in. A short man, wide, wearing a black fedora, dark glasses, a divorce lawyer dressed like some tough guy in the movies.
Grodner told me he'd describe himself as a "radical liberal" who's ready to leave Chicago now with all this negative publicity and move to the south of France and do some traveling.
Read both of Kass's well-done columns (here and here) to enjoy Grodner's slapdown at the end.
If a bias crime happens in a forest and no one reports it, did it happen?
*Image via “no-frills marilyn” at Flickr. Some rights reserved.
Lynn contributes to NewsBusters. Email her with tips or even complaints at tvisgoodforyou2 “at” yahoo “dot” com. Substitute the “@” for “at” and a period for “dot”
