By Dan McLaughlin
Wednesday, April 21, 2021
There is a telling disclaimer in NPR’s report on the
police shooting of a 16-year-old girl, Ma’Khia Bryant, in Columbus, Ohio, which
was initially blasted out on Twitter as “cops shoot unarmed black girl” when it
actually turns out that video shows that Bryant was in the process of stabbing
another black teenage girl when she was shot. NPR concludes its writeup with
this warning:
This is a developing story. Some
facts reported by the media may later turn out to be wrong. We will focus on
reports from police officials and other authorities, credible news outlets and
reporters who are at the scene, and we will update as the situation develops.
This is the nature of journalism on a deadline: You may
have the facts wrong, and if so, you need to correct them later on. But
the police do not have that luxury. If you watch the video of the shooting,
you can clearly see that the officer had to make a split-second decision
whether to let Bryant stab someone, or whether to use the only force available
that could stop the stabbing. As I noted yesterday, some police cases do
not unfold that quickly — Derek Chauvin’s killing of George Floyd did not — but
many do. Journalists who have occasion to go back and realize that they have
reported some key facts wrong in the heat of a breaking story should have a little
more humility in judging people whose jobs involve making graver decisions in
less time with no ability to edit their own mistakes later.
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