Boston Marathon bombings ... Rolling Stone Cover

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WestCoastJoe
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/eri ... f-caution/
CNN’s double breakdown: So much for ‘abundance of caution’

Posted by Erik Wemple on April 17, 2013 at 3:35 pm

CNN’s John King this afternoon broke some enormous news. A suspect had been identified in the Boston Marathon bombings. From CNN.com:

The breakthrough came from analysis of video from a department store near the site of the second explosion. Video from a Boston television station also contributed to the progress, said the source, who declined to be more specific but called it a significant development.

King had more. The CNN reporter gave a description of the suspect — well, not a description, but rather a categorization: “Dark-skinned” male.

Here’s the transcript that sparked the tweets. King was speaking on CNN’s air:

I want to be very careful about this because people get very sensitive when you say these things. I was told by one of these sources, who is a law enforcement official, that this was a dark-skinned male. The official used some other words, I’m not going to repeat them until we get more information because of the sensitivities. There are some people that will take offense even at saying that.

Some caveats here: This was a breaking-news situation, or at least CNN thought it was. And in a story like this, reporters justifiably feel pressure to pass along any and all details that they extract from their law-enforcement sources. After all, why wouldn’t you?

Well, in this case, you wouldn’t because “dark-skinned male” is useless information that borders on inflammatory. King apparently approached this tidbit with a mindset of restraint, saying that he withheld certain details that he learned from his killer source. So why didn’t he put “dark-skinned” into that same basket? If the police were searching for this individual, what assistance would the “dark-skinned” description offer? Should King have mentioned that the suspect had two eyes and a nose?

And identifying characteristics quickly seemed to have little relevance here: Authorities had arrested the suspect, as CNN reported today as well. Then we found out that the authorities had done no such thing. Official sources are now very much on the record denying CNN’s report of an arrest in the case.

So the network piled one failure—a “dark-skinned” suspect—on top of another—an arrest that didn’t exist. It’s all proof that you can say “abundance of caution” over and over without actually acting on it. In looking back at the reportorial failure, King noted that “part of this reflects on us,” but part of it also reflects on sources and authorities. That’s not exactly taking ownership.
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WestCoastJoe
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The public has a huge appetite for information. The media feeds this hunger. And the media sometimes gets out ahead of the story, trying to get the scoop.

I generally like the reporting of John King of CNN. It looks like he is having to pull back a bit here. The investigators in Boston may be talking to someone, who may have been identified on camera, and who may become a "suspect." But the authorities feel their investigation could be compromised if it was known that a suspect was in custody.

Count me amongst the ones that want to know. Stories such as this are about the world in which we live. So many of these stories come from the U.S. These "terrorist" acts in the U.S., whether from national, or foreign sources, are a huge concern to the northern neighbour of the U.S.
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274always
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I visited CNN HQ in Atlanta just 12 days ago. Talk about facepalm. :thdn:

This case looks simple but is turning out to be quite complex. We might all be surprised in the end as to who perpetrated this. :shock:
Grey Cup 103. Graduation day.
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WestCoastJoe
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http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/17/us/boston ... ?hpt=hp_t1
Sources: Possible suspect sought in Boston bombing

By Michael Pearson and Tom Watkins, CNN

updated 4:18 PM EDT, Wed April 17, 2013

(CNN) -- Investigators scrambling to solve the fatal bombings at the Boston Marathon want to question a man seen on video as a possible suspect in the attack, two official sources with knowledge of the investigation said Wednesday.

The sources identified the person as a man wearing a white baseball cap. One of the sources added that the cap was on backwards and the man was also wearing a light-colored hooded sweatshirt and a black jacket. The second source said investigators have not identified this person.

The news comes on a day when authorities have made "significant progress" in the case but no arrests, a federal law enforcement source told CNN's John King. Sources previously told CNN that a suspect was in custody, but both Boston police and the FBI denied that any arrests had been made.

In addition, a federal law enforcement source told CNN that "anyone who says 'arrest' is ahead of themselves."

A Boston law enforcement told CNN, "We got him," but wouldn't clarify whether that meant a suspect has been identified or arrested. Some federal sources said it was even too early to say investigators had identified the suspect, but several sources in Boston told CNN that they have a clear identification.

Earlier Wednesday, investigators revealed more details about the makeup of the bombs, which exploded 12 seconds apart near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. The blasts killed three people and wounded about 180 others.

One of the bombs was housed in a pressure cooker hidden inside a backpack, the FBI said in a joint intelligence bulletin. The device also had fragments that may have included nails, BBs and ball bearings, the agency said.

The second bomb was also housed in a metal container, but it was not clear whether it too was in a pressure cooker, the FBI said.

The U.S. government has warned federal agencies in the past that terrorists could turn pressure cookers into bombs by packing them with explosives and shrapnel and detonating them with blasting caps.

The bombs

Photos obtained by CNN show the remains of a pressure cooker found at the scene, along with a shredded black backpack and what appear to be metal pellets or ball bearings.

Scraps of at least one pressure cooker, nails and nylon bags found at the scene were sent to the FBI's national laboratory in Virginia, where technicians will try to reconstruct the devices, the agent leading the investigation said Tuesday.

The pieces suggest each of the devices was 6 liters (about 1.6 gallons) in volume, a Boston law enforcement source said. The recovered parts include part of a circuit board, which might have been used to detonate a device.

A law enforcement official said Monday's bombs were probably detonated by timers. But the FBI said details of the detonating system were unknown.

While the clues moved the investigation forward, they did not make it immediately apparent whether the attack was an act of domestic or foreign terrorism.

Tracking suspects in the Boston bombings

New clues in Boston Marathon attack

Photos: Deadly attack at Boston Marathon

"If your experience and your expertise is Middle East terrorism, it has the hallmarks of al Qaeda or a Middle East group," former FBI Assistant Director Tom Fuentes said. "If your experience is domestic groups and bombings that have occurred here, it has the hallmarks of a domestic terrorist like Eric Rudolph in the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics bombings."

Things we know

Fuentes said he has investigated both types of terrorism -- from Iraq to the United States -- and finds the Boston attack has elements of both. "It has the hallmarks of both domestic and international (attacks), and you can see either side of that."

Opinion: Why is this so rare?

Third victim identified

Boston University identified graduate student Lingzu Lu as the third person who died in Monday's bombings.

Previously identified were Krystle Campbell, 29, of Arlington, Massachusetts, and Martin Richard, 8, of Dorchester, Massachusetts.

"She was the best," Campbell's distraught mother, Patty, told reporters Tuesday. "You couldn't ask for a better daughter."

Martin "was a bright, energetic young boy who had big dreams and high hopes for his future," his school said in a statement. "We are heartbroken by this loss."

Source: Bomb was in pressure cooker

Boston doctor: 'Everyone was my patient'

Remembering 8-year-old Martin Richard
The hunt for the attacker

The attack left Boston police with "the most complex crime scene that we've dealt with in the history of our department," Commissioner Ed Davis said Tuesday.

Authorities sifted through thousands of pieces of evidence and a mass of digital photos and video clips leading up to Wednesday's arrest. They had pleaded for the public's help in providing additional leads and images.

"Someone knows who did this," said Rick DesLauriers, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Boston office said. "The community will play a crucial role in this investigation."

Medical personnel treating the wounded found evidence suggesting the bombmaker or bombmakers sought to maximize the suffering.

Dr. George Velmahos, head of trauma care at Massachusetts General Hospital, said his team found metal pellets and nails inside patients' bodies.

"They are numerous. There are people who have 10, 20, 30, 40 of them in their body, or more," Velmahos said.

While most of the patients treated at Brigham and Women's Hospital were wounded by "ordinary debris," three were struck by "perfectly round objects" that were uniform, consistent and metallic, the hospital's chairman of emergency medicine said.

'Human spirit' still alive

Dr. Ron Walls also said one patient had more than 12 carpenter-type nails.

"There is no question some of these objects were implanted in the device for the purpose of being exploded forward," he said.

Victims continue recovery

As investigators closed in on a suspect, those wounded in the incident continued to recover.

Boston Medical Center has two patients in critical condition, down from 11 just after the bombings, Dr. Peter Burke, chief of trauma care, told reporters Wednesday. Ten patients are in serious condition and seven are in fair condition, he said.

The incident deeply affected thousands, including Candace Rispoli, who was cheering on a friend when the festive atmosphere turned into a "terrifying hell." She suffered minor injuries.

"I personally will never participate in an event of this nature in a city in fear that something like this could happen again," she said. "I keep replaying the moments of terror over and over in my head and am just still in utter shock. Always seeing terrible things of this nature happen all over the world on TV, my heart would always go out to those directly affected. But I never imagined in a million years I would be a spectator at the Boston Marathon run
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notahomer
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I heard about the bombings about 30 minutes afterwards. Obviously a story with many stories still to come.

I immediately wondered about this weekends SUN RUN and obviously the planners have done so too. IIRC, Scott Rintoul was supposed to be running in this years Boston Marathon. I sure hope it went okay for him. He was really looking forward to completing the marathon but I'm betting his concerns going in have nothing compared to his concerns/thoughts today.

As far as media coverage goes. I certainly want it done right rather than FAST. I heard the rumours and comments on CNN the other day but I ignored them. Law enforcement will get the job done, lets just give them the time/resources to do it. I want the right results, not results based on needing them quickly........
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WestCoastJoe
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I am not as upset as James, but I hear what he is saying.

In the little that I watched, there was Anderson Cooper, plus two other men, plus a woman, Juliette Keyyem, formerly with Homeland Security. The woman was a pain. She became the second speaker after anybody else spoke. She kept repeating herself. She was panicky and struggling to find words. She acted as if she was alone in a press conference, and had to speak constantly. Finally they got her off the air.

In a tragedy such as this, I do like to see and hear what is going on. But the media are like starving dogs chasing the little rabbit.

I will only watch a bit later to see if there is any news on the "person of interest."
...........

One comment about the modern age: People have the time nowadays to brew their anger, at whatever, and that sometimes spills over into acts against random people. In simpler times, there was not enough energy, time, awareness, or opportunity for these acts to incubate and develop. It is a crazy age in which we live.
TheLionKing
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notahomer wrote: I immediately wondered about this weekends SUN RUN and obviously the planners have done so too. IIRC, Scott Rintoul was supposed to be running in this years Boston Marathon. I sure hope it went okay for him. He was really looking forward to completing the marathon but I'm betting his concerns going in have nothing compared to his concerns/thoughts today.
Team 1040 interviewed Scott yesterday. He completed the marathon and was back at his hotel when the bombs went off.
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WestCoastJoe
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Seen on a video, the man wore a white baseball cap. One of the sources added that the cap was on backward and the man was also wearing a light-colored hooded sweatshirt and a black jacket.

It was not immediately clear if he is one of those alluded to in the photographs distributed to law enforcement officials.

The reports came after a chaotic day in which some law enforcement sources initially told media outlets that a suspect had been arrested, only to have the FBI and Boston police issue formal denials that any suspect was in custody.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/18/us/boston ... ?hpt=hp_t2
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WestCoastJoe
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CNN gave “The Daily Show’s” Jon Stewart altogether too much information with which to play. First there was John King’s erroneous report of an arrest in the Boston Marathon bombings. Then there was the way that CNN talent, including Chris Cuomo, Fran Townsend and King himself, tried to analyze away the mistake after it went down. King: “There’s clearly something afoot today.” Cuomo: “We’re getting some conflicting reports about an arrest.” Erin Burnett: “The information has been dribbling and drabbling—there’s obviously been a lot of confusion.” Cuomo: “We don’t know what’s right or not right at this point, and as Anderson always says, you don’t want to go down the road of speculation wrongfully.”

To which Stewart said: “Well, that’s what you were doing! You spent an hour debating the merits of your own fiction. See, we’re accustomed to 24-hour news outlets thriving on conflict. Generally, though, that conflict is between two outside parties—political opponents, pundits. But CNN’s reporters have discovered they can remove the middleman and spend hours of programming fighting among themselves.”

While Stewart’s send-ups of cable news gaffes often tend toward low-hanging-fruit rants, there’s something to this critique. Watching CNN’s report dissolve under the denials of one official organ after another was painful enough. Even more excruciating was watching the aftermath, as various CNN correspondents and anchors chewed over the mess of data. If the pressures of 24/7 news TV created this screwup, then the wasteland of 24/7 news TV—expanses of time to fill, that is—exacerbated it.
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WestCoastJoe
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224 pm PT

Images of the "suspects" being publicized. Wow. One of the advantages of modern day technology.

Were these guys expecting to get caught?

Those packs look very heavy, which they were.
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Robbie
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Here they are. Recognize them?
Image
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祝你龍年行大運。
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TheLionKing
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Looks young. Given their notoreity and publicity I think someone would idenify and turn them in very quickly.
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