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What makes the news, and what doesn't
Topic Started: Aug 8 2008, 06:47 AM (90 Views)
George K
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Finally
A man was arrested for threatening to kill Barack Obama yesterday.

Here's how the story was reported by two respected news outlets.

Posted Image

Posted Image

Here's how the AP reported the story. Guess what didn't make the other two.

Man held in Fla. on charge of threatening Obama

Quote:
 
MIAMI (AP) — A man who authorities said was keeping weapons and military-style gear in his hotel room and car appeared in court Thursday on charges he threatened to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Raymond Hunter Geisel, 22, was arrested by the Secret Service on Saturday in Miami and was ordered held at Miami's downtown detention center without bail Thursday by a federal magistrate.

A Secret Service affidavit charges that Geisel made the threat during a training class for bail bondsmen in Miami in late July. According to someone else in the 48-member class, Geisel allegedly referred to Obama with a racial epithet and continued, "If he gets elected, I'll assassinate him myself."

Obama was most recently in Florida on Aug. 1-2 but did not visit the South Florida area.

Another person in the class [size=7]quoted Geisel as saying that "he hated George W. Bush and that he wanted to put a bullet in the president's head,"[/size] according to the Secret Service.

Geisel denied in a written statement to a Secret Service agent that he ever made those threats, and the documents don't indicate that he ever took steps to carry out any assassination. He was charged only with threatening Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, but not for any threat against President Bush.

Geisel's court-appointed attorney declined comment.

In the interview with a Secret Service agent, Geisel said "if he wanted to kill Senator Obama he simply would shoot him with a sniper rifle, but then he claimed that he was just joking," according to court documents.

A search of Geisel's 1998 Ford Explorer and hotel room in Miami uncovered a loaded 9mm handgun, knives, dozens of rounds of ammunition including armor-piercing types, body armor, military-style fatigues and a machete. The SUV was wired with flashing red and yellow emergency lights.

Geisel told the Secret Service he was originally from Bangor, Maine, and had been living recently in a houseboat in the Florida Keys town of Marathon, according to court documents. He said he used the handgun for training for the bail bondsman class, had the knives for protection and used the machete to cut brush in Maine.

In the affidavit, the Secret Service said Geisel told agents that he suffered from psychiatric problems including post-traumatic stress disorder, but he couldn't provide the names of any facilities where he sought treatment.


I wonder why that part didn't make the CBS and CNN.

No I don't.
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Aqua Letifer
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ZOOOOOM!
That may be the case.

But the AP article's longer. Could be that the reporter there did a more thorough job getting into the story.

Also, looks like the Secret Service are getting involved in the Obama threat, not the Bush threat.

Quote:
 
He was charged only with threatening Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, but not for any threat against President Bush.


So the story--if there's any story here at all--is about the Obama threat. Damning quotes are a reporter's crack, but maybe they didn't speak to the guy in the class that's accusing him of this, or maybe they found no substance to it.

By the way, what's "boy armor"?
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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Dewey
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HOLY CARP!!!
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"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685.

"Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous

"Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011

I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14
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Aqua Letifer
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ZOOOOOM!
Dewey
Aug 8 2008, 07:00 AM
Posted Image

I still have one of those!!

I had the coolest house design than anyone else in my drafting classes because my house had a basement bar.
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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George K
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Finally
Aqua Letifer
Aug 8 2008, 09:57 AM
That may be the case.

But the AP article's longer. Could be that the reporter there did a more thorough job getting into the story.

Also, looks like the Secret Service are getting involved in the Obama threat, not the Bush threat.

Quote:
 
He was charged only with threatening Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, but not for any threat against President Bush.


So the story--if there's any story here at all--is about the Obama threat. Damning quotes are a reporter's crack, but maybe they didn't speak to the guy in the class that's accusing him of this, or maybe they found no substance to it.

By the way, what's "boy armor"?

"Man quoted as saying he wants to kill Obama and Bush. Arrested by FBI"

would have been an accurate headline.

"Man quoted as saying he wants to kill Obama. Arrested by FBI"

is incomplete.

Both threats were heard by witnesses. One is published, one ignored. I fail to see the difference.

A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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Red Rice
HOLY CARP!!!
George K
Aug 8 2008, 07:02 AM
One is published, one ignored. I fail to see the difference.

Because EVERYBODY wants to kill Bush. It's not news. :P
Civilisation, I vaguely realized then - and subsequent observation has confirmed the view - could not progress that way. It must have a greater guiding principle to survive. To treat it as a carcase off which each man tears as much as he can for himself, is to stand convicted a brute, fit for nothing better than a jungle existence, which is a death-struggle, leading nowhither. I did not believe that was the human destiny, for Man individually was sane and reasonable, only collectively a fool.

I hope the gunner of that Hun two-seater shot him clean, bullet to heart, and that his plane, on fire, fell like a meteor through the sky he loved. Since he had to end, I hope he ended so. But, oh, the waste! The loss!

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Dewey
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HOLY CARP!!!
Aqua Letifer
Aug 8 2008, 10:02 AM
Dewey
Aug 8 2008, 07:00 AM
Posted Image

I still have one of those!!

I had the coolest house design than anyone else in my drafting classes because my house had a basement bar.

Actually, that exact template was the first one I ever owned; I bought it when I was in Jr. High School. ^_^
"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685.

"Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous

"Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011

I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14
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Aqua Letifer
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ZOOOOOM!
George K
Aug 8 2008, 07:02 AM

"Man quoted as saying he wants to kill Obama and Bush. Arrested by FBI"

would have been an accurate headline.

"Man quoted as saying he wants to kill Obama. Arrested by FBI"

is incomplete.

Both threats were heard by witnesses. One is published, one ignored. I fail to see the difference.

Oh you mean just the headlines? Yeah that's definitely true. But surely you'd agree that the Bush comment's less important news-wise since Secret Service isn't charging him for it?

(Also, I've been told by a couple police officers that it's only a crime to threaten someone with injury or death if there is evidence that a person has the means to carry out the threat. For example, saying "I'm going to stab John Dowe" isn't a crime but saying the exact same thing with a knife in your hand is. Quirt? JF? This right?)
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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