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Across The Media Universe: Don't Blame The Pagans Edition

(AP Photo/ ABC, Ida Mae Astute)
Near Miss: ABC News' Chris Cuomo and photographer Bartley Price almost became the latest journalists to be injured or killed in Iraq. They were in an armored Humvee convoy traveling through Baghdad that came under small-arms fire. The Humvee then passed two bodies which were hiding explosives. "The explosion sent hubcap-size shrapnel tearing through the steel sides of the Humvees, rupturing tires, and wounding several troops as insurgents continued to rain small-arms fire down on the convoy."

Cuomo and Price were not hurt, and Cuomo spoke very highly of the soldiers for their handling of the incident. Was Cuomo shaken up? "I'm trying not to deal with it. I'm trying to deal with it like a soldier, just do my job," he said.

Cable Wars: Fox News, along with the New York Post and talk-radio hosts, discussed a report from a conservative magazine suggesting that Barack Obama had attended a madrassa, "a school that teaches a radical version of the Muslim faith," as a child. (The information, it was claimed, came from "researchers connected to" Hillary Clinton.) Turns out the whole thing was made up, at least according to CNN: The network sent a reporter to the school and discovered it had no connection to Islamic fundamentalism. CNN's Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer then took a shot at Fox's reporting. "That's the difference between talking about news and reporting it. You send a reporter, check the facts, and you decide at home," said Cooper. Fox News spokeswoman Irena Briganti responded with this: "Yet another cry for attention by the Paris Hilton of television news, Anderson Cooper." You stay classy, Irena.

Pagan Pride: Noted without comment, the beginning of a letter to the Gloucestershire Gazette (hat tip Greenslade): "Dear Editor I am writing with reference to an article that appeared on the Gazette's website entitled 'Devil worship fears as goat is found in ditch'. The first line of the narrative on the website suggested that this was a 'pagan-style' ritual. As a Pagan myself, I was appalled that this dreadful attack might be associated with members of the Pagan community."

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