The story of alleged Moore, Oklahoma murderer Alton Nolen, who reportedly beheaded co-worker Colleen Hufford, is fading from the headlines. Barring further developments, I don't expect it to be a news topic on any of the Big Three networks' morning or evening news shows tomorrow.
That's because it has already disappeared from prominence at the Associated Press. At 10:20 this morning, the latest story on Nolen had already dropped to Number 6 on the AP's top list of U.S. stories. By 5:30 p.m., it was gone. The top story at 5:30 was oh so predictably about Ferguson, Missouri. The "big news": a police officer was shot in the arm, and "was treated and released from a hospital."
The wire service's latest story, about how Nolen, who has regained consciousness after being shot by another co-worker who fortunately was armed, has been interviewed by police, had a Saturday evening time stamp.
In it, "a spokesman for an Oklahoma City Islamic group said Saturday that Nolen was a frequent worshipper at a mosque the group maintains and that he remembers the suspect as 'a little weird.'" This would appear to be a crude attempt at distancing the mosque from association with Nolen's savage acts. From here, it rings hollow.
In the intervening 24 hours, the AP and other national news outlets had many things they could have reported about Nolen. But they haven't.
So we'll leave to Fox News's "Kelly File" show, where reporter Trace Gallagher on Friday evening already had a slew of very relevant facts to relay to the viewing public (HT the Right Scoop):
At the 3:43 mark, Kelly observes that "This is the first American beheading on American soil reportedly in the name of jihad." This makes it news — frightening news.
Those who routinely knock Fox News really need to ask themselves why it so often is the only network that does the job every major national outlet should be doing — and especially why that's the case with this particular story.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
