MEDIA LOSER:
New York Times Books The New York Times changed a headline on Wednesday to eliminate its claim that late al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was a “devoted family man.” The headline appeared on a review by Louise Richardson on the subject of Peter Bergen’s book, The Rise and Fall of Osama Bin Laden. The review, published on Tuesday, was originally titled, “Osama bin Laden, the Fanatical Terrorist and the Devoted Family Man.” Critics quickly took note. “Nothing screams family man like using your (multiple) wives as human shields,” former Navy SEAL Rep. Dan Crenshaw, who lost an eye to an improvised explosive device during a deployment in Afghanistan, wrote on Twitter. “Once considered the ‘paper of record,’ the New York Times now runs editorials describing the monster responsible for killing thousands of New Yorkers as a ‘devoted family man,'” opined Wesley Hunt, an Army veteran running for Congress as a Republican. The headline was changed on Wednesday to something less overtly inflammatory and offensive. This was an unforced error by the New York Times, for which the outcome should have been foreseeable. It's not a case of having lionized a mortal enemy and mass-murdering, religious zealot terrorist, because the review was of the book, not the man. But the appearance of evil can be just as harmful as the fact of it. Especially when the one giving that appearance is prone to moralizing about others. A paper in the NYT's position of authority and influence - and which has engaged in very pointed excision of offense from its pages this year - should have known that. | 