I was shocked and dismayed by Howard Kurtz's unprofessional and closed-minded comments on his Reliable Sources show on CNN today regarding the coverage of the Boston bombing suspects. Neither of the well-researched articles in today's New York Times and Washington Post are claiming that the two brothers are not accused terrorists. Neither are they letting him them off the hook. Rather they seek to understand what happened and why; a noble tenet of journalism. No one is denying that reporting must eventually shed light on the transition from disaffected youth to murderers.
To hear a respected journalist, ostensibly Kurtz, slamming well-researched informative investigative journalism that seeks to understand the roots of a crime that so impacted us all, in order to inform the citizenry and prevent it from reoccurring, is as chilling as it is shameful. For him to convey that it is either/or -- cover the victims or cover the suspects -- demonstrates the same blinders and black and white, anti-knowledge thinking that, in smaller doses and different contexts, characterizes the mind of the terrorist. His comments created a tone that led directly to Cullen, also, allegedly, a respected journalist, making the xenophobic remark that, since he could not pronounce the names of the suspects, we should spend more time on names we can pronounce.
You call yourself a journalist? Your comments and attitude were irresponsible and you rendered yourself a most un-Reliable Source. Your anti-knowledge small mindedness were an insult to the profession and you should be ashamed of yourself.