So, for shock value, the news makes a rather articulate four-year-old seem like an aspiring thug because he's planning on having a gun himself, calling his comments "a disturbing reaction."

Then the footage they cut shows that the reason he plans on having a gun is "I'm gonna be the police."

Nice. In one convenient snip that would have taken an additional four seconds to include, they created "a disturbing reaction" from an embryo aspiration to become a cop.

Racists already have sufficient fodder to bolster their beliefs that blacks are innately violent, inferior, stupid, whatever. They don't need help from the news butchering a four-year-old's comment. Personally, I think the kid showed incredible restraint and should be commended for it. At four years old, I would have kicked that interviewer in the shin for his patronizing attitude.

This is pretty horrible stuff, and it's one reason that regardless of the atrocity reportedly committed by Republican, Democrat, or Economist or Scientist, I regard most of it as idiot and lazy reporting. This shows it's idiot, lazy, and evil reporters.

Most J-school grads didn't go to learn to report the news, they went to "change the world".

In other words, they have an agenda, and all the people they see are mere pawns in their desire to push that agenda.

That and most of them wouldn't make it beyond assistant fry cook in the real world.

In other words, they have an agenda, and all the people they see are mere pawns in their desire to push that agenda.

I went to J-school, and I wouldn't say that's accurate. If anything, J-school students are almost idealistically committed to the tenets of journalistic responsibility -- at least they were in my school.

That said, this video is all kinds of wrong. It makes me wonder if the person who interviewed/shot it edited the piece, or if someone else edited it.

If it's the former, the person who shot it chose a frame and cut the story so that it fit that frame.

If it's the latter, then it's possible that person editing the piece didn't watch the interview all the way through and cut it off after "I'm going to have me a gun."

So, we've either got a case of deliberate irresponsibility...or laziness. Neither of which is acceptable. Lovely.

what shocks me is that the NAACP even exists. As far as the journalism value, ya it sucks, but anyone who thinks that television news is anything but entertainment these days is very naive. There is no such animal as unbiased news anymore. Every news program has an agenda, be it from the right or left. And btw, the blacks have no one but themselves to blame for a violent stereotype, haven't been listening to rap music or watching famous black celebrities and their posses?

And btw, the blacks have no one but themselves to blame for a violent stereotype, haven't been listening to rap music or watching famous black celebrities and their posses?

What the hell does that have to do with this story?

Kid wanted to grow up and be a cop, not a rapper or a gangster.

Most J-school grads didn't go to learn to report the news, they went to "change the world". In other words, they have an agenda, and all the people they see are mere pawns in their desire to push that agenda. That and most of them wouldn't make it beyond assistant fry cook in the real world.

And what agenda might that be? Seriously. Spell it out for me in extremely basic English so my fry-cook brain can absorb it.

"an aspiring thug because he's planning on having a gun himself, calling his comments "a disturbing reaction."
Then the footage they cut shows that the reason he plans on having a gun is "I'm gonna be the police.""

It takes on a whole differnt meaning to me:

I do NOT assume a private citizen who owns a gun equals a thug.
I also do NOT assume person with a badge can't be a thug.

My biggest problem with J school and J school graduates is that most of them have focused on writing skills to the exclusion of basic subject matter expertise in the fields that they want to write about.
In my opinion you can't write about subjects that you do not know a great deal about because if you are writing about an area you have no advanced knowledge of, you have no bullshit detectors to set off any alarms when two or more things you are told simply don't add up or are mutually exclusive.
This has reduced most journalism to the lowest common denominator where we have people with no expertise writing about things they do not understand, and taking everything they are told at face value. In short, many if not most journalism majors are gullible fools.

What emerges from their literary efforts is usually a noxious combination of baby food and bullshit.

kevin, your reading retention is poor. What it "has to wo with the story" is the NAACP's assertion that this was done to promote the sterotype of blacks as "thugs and gangsters". My comment was that they do enough of this on their own, they certainly do not need the news media's help.

Vinnie and I were just talking about this last night. Hooray for the little boy who wants to grow up to be a policeman, and sneers to the jerks in the editing room who deliberately left out certain crucial words and phrases to twist the child's positive goal and make him sound like a baby gang-banger. Isn't there enough vitriol in the world already without manufacturing it this way?

You are the best...have been for years! Keep on going, Amy. You have many fans. Phil

The question is whether this is one time behavior by the national media?

The answer: An unequivocal NO!!

How many of you heard about Operation Fast and Furious?

I will grant it was broken by CBS.

But now it looks more and more that Eric Holder -- the head of the Department of Justice -- had full knowledge of Fast and Furious since the program's inception. It probably will lead to the White House and Obama. Why doesn't this make national news every night?

The national press is doing its best to not report it. Why? Because they believe the possession of a gun by a "civilian" is wrong. They have no respect for the Second Amendment.