Returning to a familiar topic again

You have seen, I'm sure, the news about a shooting at a Jewish Center in Seattle. It was on 'Breaking News' on the local stations late this afternoon, with local reporters. I always find it interesting, outside of the drama of the story itself, to see how the media play up and down various aspects of a story, particularly given their need to fill in time during a live broadcast in which they can't really "send it back to the newsroom" and go on to a scripted story. The local 'authorities' can be pretty interesting too.

For one thing, there was a great deal of elaboration about what the attacker allegedly said before opening fire - the actual quote, from someone who wasn't actually there but had heard it from a friend who might have been, was only about 5 words long - but the reporters filled in quite a few adjectives and verbs and pronouns and prepositional phrases...

And then there were the videos of a couple of policemen running down the street with a couple of women, presumably escorting them out of harm's way. One of them was obviously hurt - bleeding - but was being hustled all the way down the street, past alleys, other buildings, groups of policemen crouched in doorways and around cars... Way down the street. Couldn't they have gotten her some help and safety without the marathon run?

Or the police and FBI and goodness knows what other representatives of other agencies, all with their weapons held at the ready, and basically, (and inadvertently, obviously) pointing right at the heads of other policemen who were huddled right in front of them in a tight group. Were they not paying attention to what they were doing? Did they not realize that they would have shot each other if they'd been called to open fire?

Finally, we were shown a related story about how police protection had been called out to all the area Jewish Centers in case this was an organized "politically motivated" act of terrorism. Which was fine - a good side story - except that the picture they showed us was of 5 or 6 cops, hanging around a single police cruiser, all stuffing their mouths with food of some sort (I could be trite and assume they were donuts, and am sorely tempted to do so) and sharing a good laugh; hardly the sort of picture that should have gone with such a story.

But they WERE covering the news 'as it happened.' That should count for something.