ABC News: Colorado shooter is a Tea Partier! Or not . . .

• jhay78

  

  This morning on Good Morning America, Brian Ross and George Stephanopoulus, in surprisingly unbiased fashion :rolleyes: , mention that the Colorado movie theater shooter might be a member of the Tea Party. ABC News has retracted that, but can you believe the lunacy of these people?
  
  http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/07/20/It-Begins-ABC-Ross-Stephanolpoulos-Point-to-Tea-Party-for-Dark-Knight-Shooting
  

  [h=2]On Good Morning America, ABC News' Brian Ross and George Stephanolpoulos suggested that the Tea Party might be connected to the mass shootings early this morning in an Aurora, CO theater during a screening of the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises. The mainstream media attempted to blame the Tea Party for the Tuscon shootings in January 2011, shortly after Republicans swept the midterm elections. Now, in the critical 2012 elections, the mainstream media seems poised to do the same--and ABC News has led the way.[/h]Here is the exchange between ABC News chief investigator Brian Ross and host George Stephanopoulos about apparent suspect James Holmes:
  
  [INDENT]Stephanolpoulos: I'm going to go to Brian Ross. You've been investigating the background of Jim Holmes here. You found something that might be significant.
  
  Ross: There's a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado, page on the Colorado Tea party site as well, talking about him joining the Tea Party last year. Now, we don't know if this is the same Jim Holmes. But it's Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado.
  
  Stephanolpoulos: Okay, we'll keep looking at that. Brian Ross, thanks very much.
  
  [/INDENT]How interesting that Ross and ABC News should think to look to the Tea Party website first--and to broadcast politically volatile information without verifying if that "Jim Holmes" is the same as the suspect.
  The "Jim Holmes" page on the Colorado Tea Party website is advertising an event with Middle East commentator Brigitte Gabriel next Thursday, July 26--hardly the behavior of a man who expected to be committing a deadly crime on July 20 for which he would certainly be apprehended and might not survive.
  Look for more scapegoating from the mainstream media and the Democrats in the hours and days to follow.
  
  UPDATE: The James Holmes arrested at the Aurora theater was 24 years old and seems to be from Denver, CO, according to a Facebook profile (a similar Facebook profile linked by a local news reporter has not been confirmed as the suspect's profile, either). There are many people with the name "James Holmes" in the area, and the James Homes on the Tea Party website could match a James Homes from Aurora, CO who is in his fifties and therefore does not fit the description of the suspect. More evidence that Ross, Stephanolpoulos and ABC rushed to blame the Tea Party without confirmation that the suspect is also the Tea Party member.
  
  UPDATE: When ABC News corrected its initial report, it tried to spread the blame around to "social media" and "members of the public":
  [INDENT]An earlier ABC News broadcast report suggested that a Jim Holmes of a Colorado Tea Party organization might be the suspect, but that report was incorrect. Several other local residents with similar names were also contacted via social media by members of the public who mistook them for the suspect.
  
  [/INDENT]It has since issued a more straightforward apology:
  [INDENT]An earlier ABC News broadcast report suggested that a Jim Holmes of a Colorado Tea Party organization might be the suspect, but that report was incorrect. ABC News and Brian Ross apologize for the mistake, and for disseminating that information before it was properly vetted.
  [/INDENT]Developing...
  

  Apology not accepted. :mad:
• bigdaddy2003

  

  Not shocking but still ridiculous.
• derek bomar

  

  everything about this situation sucks. sad to see the coverage of it does too.
• ts1227

  

  It's not relevant if he is or not, but ANY organization he was affiliated with is going to at least attempt to deny it to avoid bad publicity.
• majorspark

  

  Interesting some so called journalist is immediately out searching the tea party roles.
• I Wear Pants

  http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/20/12856827-how-not-to-respond-to-a-tragedy?lite
  
  What a fucking asshole. Interesting some Republican is immediately trying to score some political points and at the same time misrepresenting the views of the founding fathers.
  
  See, that shit works both ways.
• FatHobbit

  

  I Wear Pants;1229928 wrote:What a fucking asshole.

  Both sides are full of them.
• I Wear Pants

  FatHobbit;1229931 wrote:Both sides are full of them.

  That's the truth.
• BoatShoes

  I'm consistently impressed at the media's ability to continually prove that it can suck even more.
• fish82

  

  I Wear Pants;1229928 wrote:http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/20/12856827-how-not-to-respond-to-a-tragedy?lite
  
  What a ****ing ****. Interesting some Republican is immediately trying to score some political points and at the same time misrepresenting the views of the founding fathers.
  
  See, that **** works both ways.

  This was a "journalist" on a major network. His (or one of his snot nosed producers) first move at 6am was to google "Jim/James Holmes Tea Party." He got what he thought he was looking for and ran with it. I'm sorry, but your example isn't even in the same ballpark.
  
  Brian Ross should be cleaning out his desk by the end of the day. Period.
• BoatShoes

  fish82;1230003 wrote:This was a "journalist" on a major network. His (or one of his snot nosed producers) first move at 6am was to google "Jim/James Holmes Tea Party." He got what he thought he was looking for and ran with it. I'm sorry, but your example isn't even in the same ballpark.
  
  Brian Ross should be cleaning out his desk by the end of the day. Period.

  I agree with this. I mean, isn't there anyone at the entire network who might have said, "you know, we get a lot of flack for having a liberal bias...maybe it wouldn't be the best idea to assume that this shooter is a Tea Partier and make such a claim with zero evidence on the air."
  
  Pretty pathetic.
• goosebumps

  

  So, can we just make a rule that you can't use the Huffington Post to support your argument? I mean really the Huffington Post? I'm gonna start quoting Rush Limbaugh if you're gonna use the Huffington post, he's just as slanted and just as ridiculous.
• j_crazy

  

  Why would it matter? He did this, it doesn't matter which way he votes.
• I Wear Pants

  fish82;1230003 wrote:This was a "journalist" on a major network. His (or one of his snot nosed producers) first move at 6am was to google "Jim/James Holmes Tea Party." He got what he thought he was looking for and ran with it. I'm sorry, but your example isn't even in the same ballpark.
  
  Brian Ross should be cleaning out his desk by the end of the day. Period.

  My example was a god damned Congressman.
• pmoney25

  

  In all honesty its probably worse that it was a news reporter. It is there job to have sources and facts before reporting, not doing a Google search and accusing 50 yr old man of mass murder.
• gut

  Speaking of sources/accuracy....Washington Post called Romney a "pioneer in outsourcing". This has been debunked, and I beleive even the Washington Post had another article clarifying/correting. Yet the Obama campaign keeps running an ad citing that original article. They skirt the issue of lying or false claims by citing the article, thereby washing their hands of any responsibility for accuracy or integrity.
• HitsRus

  

  The congressman is accountable to his constituency, and his comments hurt no one but perhaps his own credibility.
  
  The journalist is another matter.
• gut

  There's no money (or so they think) in being a "credible" journalist any more. Scandal and shock is what sells, and the mainstream journalists have long ceased to triple-check sources because otherwise they get scooped by less scrupulous bloggers who take the food off their table. Ultimately we have ourselves to blame. Well, maybe not most of the people on this board but the attention deficit and intellectually challenged masses.
• believer

  

  gut;1230541 wrote:Well, maybe not most of the people on this board but the attention deficit and intellectually challenged masses.

  Like this guy?
  
  
• O-Trap

  

  Just one more reason why the mainstream media (I cringe at the use of that term because of its negative connotations in modernity) is one of the few entities I trust even less than Congress.