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What's in a name?
11/6/2009
- Political - Article Ref: IV0911-3982
Number of comments: 4
Opinion Summary: Agree:1 Disagree:2 Neutral:1
By: Megan Garber
Iviews* -
What's in a name? Very, very little-particularly
when it comes to divining the motivations of the perpetrator of a violent crime.
But that will not stop media analysts from reading into the fact that one of the
shooters-and possibly the only shooter-at this afternoon's massacre at Fort Hood
was named...Nidal Malik Hasan.
Take Shep Smith, the Fox News anchor oft cited
for being one of 'the good guys'-the real, responsible reporters-at Fox. Smith,
covering the network's 5pm time slot for an appendicitis-stricken Glenn Beck,
interviewed Texas senator Kay Bailey Hutchison about the Fort Hood events. In
the process, Smith went out of his way to stress the decision he'd made to err
on the side of caution when it came to revealing the identity of the shooting suspect. Until military sources had confirmed the name,
Smith said, he wouldn't report it.
That decision would be admirable-had it been
purely about journalistic accuracy, respecting the suspect's family, etc. But it
wasn't. It was also about the name. And what the name, you know, meant. As Smith
put it: "The name tells us a lot, does it not, Senator?"
The assumption being-well, you know what the
assumption is.
Below, my transcript of the exchange:
Smith: Senator Hutchison, uh, other news
organizations are identifying the shooter-the now deceased uh, uh, officer in
the United States Army [coughs]-who, as you've reported to us here, was about
to deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan, was upset about that, and then today went on
this shooting rampage. I've been given a name that's being reported elsewhere,
and, uh, I'm not-are-have you been given a name, and what do you know about
this suspect? How much are you able to tell us?
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Hutchison: Well, I have been given a name, but I would not want to
confirm that, because I don't know if this person's family has been notified.
So I would not want to give the name. I do know-I, I have been given a name.
Smith: We've been given a name, as well, and, quite frankly, I'm not
comfortable going with it 'til it's given to me by the United States military,
and they say, 'This is who it is.' Unless we get it separately. But the
name tells us a lot, does it not, Senator?
Hutchison: It does, Shepard. And that's why it's a very sad
situation.
Smith-and Hutchison-and all the others who are
tempted to engage in this kind of Muslim-to-murderer implication-mongering-would
do well to heed the warning of ABC's Jake Tapper: "No word on motive yet," he Twittered
earlier this afternoon, "and at a time like this people should listen to their
better angels."
Megan
Garber wrote this for the Columbia Journalism Review.
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