The New York Post came in for some scathing criticism over its egregious errors in reporting on the Boston Marathon bombings. The tabloid first said 12 were dead then that a Saudi national was a suspect and finally produced a front page photo of two young bystanders whom they called “Bag Men.”
“It can hardly be denied that the racy Post has pointed the way for decades toward an info-entertainment hybrid that many have followed. This week, at least, in its stunning contempt for fact, it has defined the basement into which no media outlet that wants respect wishes to descend,” writes Jack Shafer, Reuters, April 18, 2013.
One of those identified as a bag man was a seventeen-year-old high school track athlete who speculated with some mortification that he was singled out by the Post because his skin was dark, his family originating in Morocco. Neither the athlete or his coach, the other depicted in the photo, were official suspects. (Coumbia Journalism Review, April 19, 2013, by Ryan Chittum)
The Post messed up the most but the rest of the media made numerous errors as documented by Andrew Beaujon and Mallory Jean Tenore for the Poynter Institute, April 19, 2013, and in spite of the scorn and embarrassment, there is no longer much by way of internal discipline or review, says James Hohmann of Politico, April 19, 2013. -db