Yesterday morning, Floyd Lee Corkins II was sentenced by a federal judge in the District of Columbia to 25 years in prison for his act of terrorism and attempted murder last August at the Family Research Council. Corkins targeted the socially conservative think tank because of what he considered their "anti-gay" views. In an interrogation with the FBI, he admitted that he drew inspiration from a "hate map" on the website for the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)
But if you depend solely on ABC, CBS, or NBC's newscasts, you didn't learn any of this. Those networks completely ignored Corkins's sentencing both in September 19 evening news programs and their September 20 morning shows. What's more, the New York Times, which prides itself on publishing "all the news that's fit to print," failed to report the story at all in the Friday newspaper. The Washington Post ran a 28-paragraph story by staffer Ann Marimow, which was printed on page B3. Marimow's story lacked any mention, however, of the role the SPLC's website played in Corkins's planned attack.
As my colleague Matthew Balan noted back in April, CBS aired for their viewers FRC surveillance video which showed Corkins's attack on security guard Leo Johnson. ABC and NBC failed to show the video. It's a shame that all three networks have failed to cover the sentencing.
