MEOW

There are elements in the blogosphere that like to gloat over the death of the "MSM"- the Mainstream Media, aka the Legacy Media,  sometimes sneered at as the LameStream Media.

In return, professional journalists often snipe that blogs are no substitute for their work, and indeed would not exist without it.

This week I've had cause to understand the professional journalist's side of the argument.

When a friend told me about the West Coast Bank bombing, my first response was to comb the Internet for local news resources.  I found plenty.  Skim the References listed at the end of every post this week and you will see them- breaking news reported by local sources.  I'm unable to go to Oregon myself and I was grateful for the information.  As a blogger I felt it was my job to weave all the facts into an understandable story and give my readers good sources of information to look up on their own.

In the process of gathering that information, I saw what some journalists have been complaining about. Every online new story attracts comments these days, and although moderators make a show of asking commentors to be civil, there are always a few ill-considered and ugly remarks.  That is to be expected.  What I saw was not an anonymous, bile-soaked comment.  It was a post on the bombing carried on a well-trafficked site.

It exemplified what I've come to think of as MEOW- the Moral Equivalent of Wankitude.

Completely source- and fact-free, it implied that Joshua Turnidge was a Neo-Nazi and called him demonic.  It speculated on far-right gun culture and assumed that Turnidge learned to build bombs at gun shows.

It offered not one shred of evidence for any of this.

Instead, it posted pictures of Turnidge and his girlfriend apparently gleaned from a social networking site.  Turnidge is seen drinking something in a plastic cup while a woman- I presume it is his girlfriend, but not even this is confirmed- sits on his lap and smokes a cigarette.  In another, a woman (is it the same one?  We are never told, and the photos are never sourced) reclines on a bed with an automatic weapon resting between her legs.

(You mean people sometimes post ill-considered photos on the Internet?  Shocking!)

These photos are taken as evidence that Turnidge is a far-right wingnut obesessed with guns and bombs, and proof positive that he must be guilty.

"Evidence" of this quality was once used to lynch black men.  And to send Jews to the gas.

Obviously, Mr. Turnidge's appearance is frightening and offensive to some bloggers.  Fine.  I don't care for tattoos myself.  But look at this photo for a moment:

These colorful gentlemen are Rescue Ink- a group of bikers devoted to rescuing and nurturing lost and abused pets.  Their charitable work helps hundreds of animals each year.

They themselves admit that they look scary, but their tats don't 'prove' anything- their actions do.

I have no idea if Joshua Turnidge embraces Neo-Nazi, far-right ideas.  No one does.  Not one single statement describing his beliefs has been released to the media.  If a letter or diary entry or interview reveals ugly beliefs, fine- cite it, quote it, and bash away.

But when even Prosecutors refuse to speculate on a motive, I'm going to resist jumping to conclusions.  To do otherwise is to spew self-indulgent crud based on a person's image in a few photographs.

If that's the best you can do, you shouldn't write.  Not even for fun.

Suppose Turnidge and his father do embrace Nazi ideas and have violent fantasies about frontier justice.  And suppose a jury trial finds them not guilty.

What then?

What if Turnidge loathes and repudiates every far-right idea imaginable? (He was starting a bio-diesel business, after all.)  But then a jury finds him guilty.

How does that suit your preconceptions?

 A lot of information was ignored by those quick to judge by appearances: that Joshua Turnidge actually won custody of his daughter from a first marriage, that he wanted to start a biodiesel fuel business, that his family had a good reputation in the community.

I'm not really interested in defending Turnidge or his father, but they are entitled to a jury trial that takes all available facts into account.

Before bloggers replace the mainstream media, some self-examination and self-restraint is in order.

After all, the next trial-by-innuendo could be yours.

Comments

[Chris Lowe]

You're quite right. There's no evidence or information about motives or even aims yet, that I've been able to find, beyond speculation.

What's interesting is that here in Oregon at least some of the unwarranted speculation apparently is motivated by resentment of Republican/rightwing terrorist smears against Barack Obama & more general imputations of disloyalty / anti-Americanness to "the left" (i.e. right wing MEOW in your terms), some of it set off by a statement by the chairman of the Oregon Republican Party, who knows the elder of the Turnidges arrested, expressing disbelief that he could have done what is alleged because he's "pro-American" and against "that sort of violence."

This kind of tit-for-tat accusatory thinking just shows that the paranoid style in American politics, as Richard Hofstadter put it 45 years ago, still lives.