BARBS

Here are a few things I am wondering about after the news events of this week:

1. If (when?) most (all?) journalists are soon to be come independent “backpack” practitioners — you’ve got all the tools, you’re on your own, good luck! — who will rescue those who, either through youth, inexperience, stupidity, or sheer bad luck, find themselves under arrest and in big trouble? What if, say, they not only don’t work for an actual organization with actual resources and support systems; but also don’t happen to work for a guy who happens to know the former President of the United States? What then? Say what you will about (mostly) corporate-owned “old media” companies (I know I certainly do); they do have systems in place for preventing what happened to Euna Lee and Laura Ling, and when it does happen, they have a bunch of back channels for protecting their people and getting them home safely (yes, I know there are exceptions; see, e.g., Daniel Pearl).

2. In plain sight: Is it really possible that a creepy guy who couldn’t get a date can plot a mass murder in plain sight — with months of tortured blog posts and video rants — and still nobody sees it? Or worse, that somebody (or somebodys-plural) did see something but didn’t say something? Jocelyn Noveck of the Associated Press has a good story on what may have been a cybertree falling in a cyberforest.

3. Isn’t it interesting how different news organizations can find very different ledes for the same news event? On Wednesday, the American Psychological Association issued new treatment guidelines for mental health professionals working with gay clients. The AP story (as well as the APA’s own news release) headlined and led with the news that the APA had soundly repudiated “gay-to-straight” therapy, such as that promoted by organizations such as Exodus International, a network of ministries whose core message is “Freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ.”  While the AP’s version of the story does give it ample consideration, the Wall Street Journal’s take focuses almost exclusively on the report’s conclusion that

…if the client still believes that affirming his same-sex attractions would be sinful or destructive to his [religious] faith, psychologists can help him construct an identity that rejects the power of those attractions, the APA says. That might require living celibately, learning to deflect sexual impulses or framing a life of struggle as an opportunity to grow closer to God.

Well, I guess that’s better than shooting people at the gym.