The Aging Rebel, a former member of outlaw motorcycle clubs and author of several books about bikers, says mainstream media unquestioningly and cravenly echoes what law enforcement tells them about the shootout at Waco last May that involved Banditos and Cossacks, and that says something sad about journalism today.
Gosh yes, I know, bikers are all a bunch of savage brutes so journalists need not to do actual digging into what happened. Thus, it’s totally okay for media to be seriously biased and compromised.
Armed law enforcement, including federal agents, were on roofs of nearby buildings, when the biker meetup happened. Why was this? Who shot first? Have all the videos been released? Actual journalists would pursue these questions. But clearly that doesn’t apply to those who pass for journalists today. It’s just so much easier to imply bikers are bloodthirsty goons. Then there’s no need to figure out what actually happened at the shootout.
A lifetime ago in Havana, Ernest Hemingway – who once worked as a reporter for the Toronto Star and the Kansas City Star – remarked to George Plimpton, “A writer without a sense of justice and of injustice would be better off editing the yearbook”¦. The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof, shit detector. This is the writer’s radar and all great writers have had it.” Looking back and around, there seems to be very little remaining reason to expect that journalism can be great or that occasionally great journalism might ensure the survival of the United States.
Instead, we just get mouthpiece press, spouting the party line. Now actual journalists need apply.
Dane Schiller of the Houston Chronicle reported as fact: “After 10 Bandidos and their supporters stabbed and severely beat four rival Cossacks, the president of the Bandidos’ Abilene chapter allegedly gave the injured a warning: ‘This is our town. If you come back, I will kill you.’
“The November 2013 incident is how federal prosecutors contend the Bandidos take care of business. An indictment unsealed this week paints a picture of a Mafia-like gang whose members roam the state on Harley-Davidsons and shed the blood of those who cross them.”
Schiller did not report how he knows that this actually happened except that, you know, some government lawyers say it did.