Balming in the media

Here is how four different media entities present the recent feeble bombing effort in New York. All four screenshowts were taken around 15:40 CET today.

Fox News put it on its front page, with a big headline claiming a terror attack:




CNN disagreed, saying it was too early to tell - also not just in the article, but in the cover link announcing the article on their main page:



BBC did not address the terrorist issue in the headline, but the article also quickly said it seems to be a one-off event, ie, not terrorist:



And, finally, Der Spiegel did not mention the bombing anywhere, but instead have this headline about poisoning the Bushes in Germany in 2007:



Actually, this is more intriguing, and smacks of far more hgh-level intrigue, than any of the other stories. The New York failed car bomber wasn't a terrories, mastermind, or anything. But who the hell is so good he can can sneak poison into a top-level party, fuck up one guy's hearing, prevent another from walking properly forever, make Laura Bush sick, evade all detection and (most remarkably) keep the erudite and garrulous president to utter a sentence with no multisyllable words? Wow! This guy is the true genius. (The poisoner. Not Bush.)


Text from that article:
Bush writes that she doesn't even know herself if any poison was discovered. She writes that the most concrete conclusion any doctors could reach is that "we contracted a virus that attacks a nerve near the inner ear and is prevalent in Heiligendamm." She claims that one White House staffer lost all hearing in one ear and that another had trouble walking. The military aide's "gait has never returned to normal," she writes, "nor has our senior staffer regained hearing in that ear."

"No, no, no," Stefan Hummel says, trying to catch his breath after an outburst of laughter. Hummel, 59, is the chief pulmonary doctor at the Median Clinic, a medical facility located just behind the Grand Hotel. He finds it strange that one person had a gastro-intestinal problem while another supposedly had an ear problem and a third a walking problem. A highly infectious virus wouldn't have remained contained within the delegation, he knows that much. And if many people had fallen ill, he says, he would have heard about it. He also said the climate at the resort was a "hostile one" to viruses.

And on the day after George W. Bush had his chicken broth, he was apparently already feeling much better. Steffen Duckhorn met the president, who was in what Duckhorn describes as good spirits, in the courtyard. Bush shook his hand and praised the cook for his meals. "Hey man, good food," Duckhorn recalls him saying.