ABC station makes tragic Petraeus Web-sourcing error
While running a news item about the fallen general, a Denver ABC station seemed to think his biography, "All In," was called "All Up In My Sn****." The station said it was an honest mistake.
Humans make errors.
Some are tragic. Some are merely funny. Some would say that the recently-revealed entanglements of generals David Petraeus and John Allen generally contain a little of both.
However, ABC Denver found an utterly bizarre way to err during its recent news broadcast about the military four-step.
For, in reporting on the affair, it produced a cover of Paula Broadwell's biography of Petraeus, "All In," that was instead adorned with an odd title.
It was "All Up In My Sn****." (The asterisked word rhymes with "catch.")
This, of course, was a Photoshopped version that some dogged wag had put up on the Web.
Americablog seems to have been the first to spot this. And others proceeded to make fun.
Yet ABC's explanation was simply that one of its editors had gone to the Web without looking to see what he was getting.
The station's official statement read: "The editor pulled the image of the book cover from the Internet without realizing it had been doctored."
Yes, some might find this funny.
But the real sadness comes from the realization, yet again, that the Web is full of all kinds of nonsense, the complete joy and trash of the human mind.
The mere existence of computers allows us to click more quickly, copy/paste more quickly and reverse our need for thought even more quickly.
We've all done it, sometimes to our cost.
