Randell Beck at the Argus Leader has finally explained why his paper has had a near-blackout (137 words of coverage, not naming the alleged perpetrator) on the Hildebrand/Schuldt embezzlement story: they're helping us poor unwashed masses fight "information overflow."
Plenty of media outlets across the state (and elsewhere) "outed" the guy, and that's their choice.
It's not ours. Ironically, our attempt to set a standard of fairness has become, to a radical few, evidence of a coverup. And so it goes.
The true believers out on the blogosphere - that strange world in cyberspace where the political and social fringes thrust and parry - can make life miserable for an everyday media elitist like me. Few rules and no standards apply.
Those waves of often-strident opinion, salted with just enough fact to seem credible, wash against us - resolute and seemingly endless, like the sea itself. If good editors - and we are blessed with many of them here - are not on guard, standards can easily be pushed aside.
Yeah, and I've got some ocean front property in Arizona I know you'd be interested in.
At least Mr. Randell Beck has condescended to come down from Mount Olympus and address the grievances of us lowly, ignorant mortals. I suppose we should at least recognize that.
How stupid does Beck think people are? The answer to that could probably be measured by the subscriber numbers of the Argus Leader, I suppose.
At last count, the South Dakota War College had pegged 11 cities, both in and outside South Dakota, with more than a dozen media outlets reporting on this. This list includes Washington D.C.'s Roll Call.
Besides, a lack of information or a lack of charges has never stopped the media (or the Argus Leader) before. Remember Bob Sahr?
HT to Bob Schwartz at the South Dakota Moderate.
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