For weeks I’ve been talking about Portland Press Herald publisher and editor Richard L. Connor’s apology for covering Ramadan and then his rephrasing of that apology.
Unfortunately the story gained only minimal national attention, most notably on “The Colbert Report”, and in James Poniewozik’s blog at Time Magazine (see Stephen Colbert Picks Up Apology and Poniewozik on the Press Herald).
We can add the print edition of Time Magazine to that list now.
This week Poniewozik has an article about Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity and Colbert’s competing March to Keep Fear Alive, and he uses the Press Herald apology to illustrate the media’s fright of that fringe element, the loud 15 Percenters.
Check out: “The 15% Solution.”
Key quote:
The very idea that in the U.S. today you have to hold a protest to promote rational discourse is absurd. It’s funny because it’s true.
Poniewozik has become one of my favorite writers in the young generation of Time Magazine writers, I’m glad he’s picked up this story.
Anyway, I think we’re nearing the end of the cycle for the apology story. While I would have liked a few more headlines, maybe a march on the Press Herald’s offices in One City Center or Richard L. Connor as Keith Olbermann’s “Worst Person in the World”, the coverage that the story did receive was quality.
And sane.
