Seattle P-I: No, we won’t help the FBI…we’ll hold a haiku contest instead! Update: FBI flooded with tips Update: Seattle P-I admits haiku contest was bone-headed idea
Update 2:00pm Eastern. The Seattle P-I responds to the blogosphere. Monica Guzman announces there will be no haiku winner contest:
The paper’s decision not to run photos of the two Seattle ferry passengers sought by the FBI didn’t take long yesterday to become part of a widespread debate that provoked readers around the country.
It also spread throughout the blogosphere. While most blogs pointed directly to the debate, some made some poignant comments about the topic of yesterday’s Daily Haiku contest, a topic that — considering the sensitivity of the issue — was probably not the best we could have come up with.
While the Big Blog mixes fun and news on a daily basis, in this case we undermined a serious issue and a serious debate, and made it seem as if we in the newsroom didn’t acknowledge its importance.
So thanks to all the bloggers who pointed this out. We agree it was a bad call and will learn from the experience.
P.S. — We’re not going to pick a winner.
Yep. We all know who the loser is, though:
The paper still refuses to run the FBI photos.
Update 11:15am Eastern. John Does are coming forward to assist the FBI. The feds say they have been flooded with tips.
FBI agents are working through tons of tips they received after releasing a photo of two men who they say were acting suspiciously aboard Washington state ferries.
Publicizing the photo of men who haven’t been accused of a crime was an unusual move by the FBI. Officials with the Bureau say they just want to talk to the two men.
The State Patrol says investigators started by showing the pictures to ferry workers, Then they showed them at a fire and police training exercise.
With no new leads, they decided to get all the ferry riders involved by publicizing the photos and asking, “do you know who these men are?”
Ed Morrissey votes for his favorite P-I reader haiku so far by Dani B.:
Don’t be proactive
More readers if ferry sinks
Post pictures after
***
At 6am yesterday morning, I posted the FBI photo of two men who have been spotted by ferry employees and passengers acting strangely aboard Washington State ferries recently. I noted that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer refused to run the photos. In a follow-up story, the P-I explained its decision further:
The P-I elected not to publish the photos, citing civil liberties and privacy concerns, which editors felt outweighed the newsworthiness of the images. “We have no confirmation that these men’s behavior was anything but innocuous, and to forever taint them by associating them with terrorism under these circumstances is not consistent with our policy,” said David McCumber, P-I managing editor.
There’s no taint if there’s no terrorism. Were their actions nefarious or misinterpreted? The men could clear that up in a split second by coming forward and saying so. Bill Hobbs weighs in at Newsbusters:
Of course it would be easier to find out which is the case if the FBI could find the guys. And it would be easier to find the guys if the Seattle P-I would publish the photos, so that Seattle-area residents would know what the men look like whom the FBI has asked the public to help them find. As it stands now, in the name of being politically correct, the Seattle P-I has decided to alarm the people of Seattle and leave them looking suspiciously at just about anyone who fits the general description of male and looking like they might be from the Middle East.
So, how else is the P-I covering the story (or rather, not covering the story)? By holding a haiku contest, of course! (Hat tip – Bill Hobbs, who has more here).
The P-I’s Monica Guzman invites readers to share their feelings in verse:
You’ll love some of the entries. A sample:
Possible danger?
Political correctness!
Paper fails duty.
Seattle P I
Is a joke to sane people
God help Seattle
a magical place,
where 9/11 never
happened. Seattle.
PI wants Haiku
To justify its dumbness
Task Impossible
And my favorite:
Who are these ‘masked’ men?
Michelle Malkin has pictures.
Get your news from her.
Hey, thanks! Feel free to post more.
See what others have said
Note from Michelle: This section is for comments from michellemalkin.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that I agree with or endorse any particular comment just because I let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with my terms of use may lose his or her posting privilege.
Trackbacks
- Seattle P.I. Won't Print Pictures of FBI Suspect; Holds Haiku Contest Instead : The American Pundit | News and Opinion With A Conservative View
- Random Nuclear Strikes » Wait for it
- Take the haiku challenge « Bookworm Room
- Malkin, Morrisey & The Department Of Precrime | The Pungo Picayune
- Civic duty or haiku contest? Haiku contest it is! « Volunteer Opinion Journal
- The Purple Nation
- Bill's Bites
- Marginalized Action Dinosaur » Daily Haiku contest in seattle, but MSM refuses to release pics of stereotyped individuals who might sink ferry.
- Tel-Chai Nation
- Why haven't the dudes come forward? : thought cops
- Ace of Spades HQ
- Sister Toldjah » Seattle Post-Intelligencer refuses to run photo of suspicious ferry filmers
- Hoystory » Blog Archive » Public responsibilities
- Seattle Terror Threat - Update « Waste Of My Oxygen
- I, Pandora » Blog Archive » Update: Newspaper Refuses To Help FBI
- Hot Air » Blog Archive » “FBI’s release of ferry passenger photos resented”
- Hot Air » Blog Archive » “FBI’s release of ferry passenger photos resented”
- Seattle Post-Intelligencer - Privacy? Really?
- Villainous Company
- Bloodthirsty Liberal » Men Behaving Oddly
- Jessie
- BlogKripa
- Michelle Malkin » What the MSM considers link-worthy blogging on Ahmadinejad
- The Seattle Post-Intelligencer Did What the New York Times Couldn’t » The American Mind
- Bull Moose Strikes Back »
- Seattle PI up for sale soon? « The Iron Whirlygig
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So when a ferry blows up and hundreds of people are killed, will the Seattle PI run the photo then?
Or will they just speculate that it was the result of mismangement by the ferry authority.
why must you profile?
haven’t you learned from edwards?
it’s bumper stickers
Seattle PI,
Head in Sand.
Now were Dead, what happened!?
If I were one of the two men shown in the photo, I would gladly come forward to explain myself. If my behavior had caused someone to think that I was plotting terror, I would be on the evening news to explain what exactly I was doing. I would do everything in my power to put ferry users’ minds at ease. If I were the PI, I would publish the photos and ask for the men to “tell their story” in my paper. That way, folks have the opportunity to get both sides of the story.
Washington ferries
Potential terrorist threat
PI turns blind eye
commies, ya gotta hand it to ‘em..,
Newspapers and the MSM wonder why they are loosing readers and viewers and they can not seem to connect the dots when readers want facts, not PC reporting.
The blog “Atlas Shrugs” had an item LAST WEEK about strange goings-on at the Seattle ferry: http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2007/08/terrors-next-mo.html
Then a ferry employee snaps a photo, and the FBI asks for it to be publicized. The newspaper refuses to publish the photo to avoid “tainting” the men, who could clear it up in a minute by simply coming forward, but instead, they seem to have disappeared. As PRESSTO said above:
The MSM and the “politically correct” folks seem to think that the rest of us are too stupid to draw our own conclusions and so therefore they must hide from us anything that might cause us to draw the “wrong” conclusions.
I do not understand why protection of our country and our way of life has to be such an uphill battle.
It’s almost to the point where I just wish places like Seattle would offer to be a host city to encourage all the terrorists and illegal immigrants to come to their city and let them have any sanctuary policy or ultraliberal policies they want. Just stay the heck away from me and mine.
The P&I will not link,
so when the ferry sinks,
Your */*# will stink.
Racial Profiling
A No-No in Seattle
Endangers Us All
Well, throw a burka on me and call me Mo
anyone know if the Seattle P-I ever printed pics of the Duke lax players? just curious how strong their “civil liberties and privacy concerns” really are.
FBI knows not
Seattle PI knows best
Security lost
Mine:
How can we keep safe?
How should we help our readers?
A Haiku Contest!
Michelle,
Since they will undoubtedly pick one of the few poems that doesn’t slam them, I think you should pick your choice of the funniest one from both their site and yours
I just finished looking over the site and reading some of the comments.
Man, are these people liberal or what?
Willfully blind?
I can’t figure Libs out! I just don’t get it.
Of course, if a ferry does get blown up, they won’t blame the P.I. for not running the pictures.
No.
They’ll blame George Bush and the F.B.I. for not preventing the attack.
No wonder we call them moonbats.
I’m thinking that the the P-I is simply living up to it’s name – Post-Intelligence.
WOW, I thought this was just clever writing by Michelle. They are really writing haiku’s! I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t see it.
See what happens when you put the crazies in charge. Whats next???? Dissolve the Seattle police department in favor of a team of crime fighting poets…..
‘I will disarm you and free the hostages with my thesaurus!’
Intelligencer?
You’d be hard pressed to prove it
Heads back in the sand
Muslims
Those wild terrorist
Planning again
The casual terrorist
snapping photos
the fuze is lit
I put this in the first thread on this topic the other day, but it bears repeating:
On August 21st, 2007 at 11:43 am, Brian72 said:
From the link to AtlasShrugs above:
As Mark Levin says signing off every night, We salute our Armed Forces, Law Enforcement, and Emergency Personnel.
Big deal. So the local paper didn’t print the pictures. All the local TV stations have carried the story and posted the pictures. And since newspapers have declining readership, wouldn’t TV be the best place for this?
I’d also like to remind everyone of Steven Hatfill. The “person of interest” in the anthrax cases. He was demonized in the media but never wound up being implicated.
And Another Thing…….this is another comment by me in that other thread, and my opinion has not changed.
If they are innocent, this situation can be rectified easy enough. If they are not, then they must be located, detained , and questioned by the FBI.
Is this newspaper really prepared to look the other way, defy the FBI and endanger their own readers all for the sake of political correctness?
It sure looks that way to me, and shame on them.
Boom, Ferry in flames!
I guess they were jihadists.
I somehow blame Bush.
They probably work for the PI.
PS. The guy on the right side of the photo….seriously disturbing. If he is completely innocent, someone should tell him to quit eating lemons.
Let’s get some coffee…
Oh No! They Blew Up Starbucks!
George Bush is to Blame!
Fox just reported on this the SP claim they were waiting for more information from the FBI, that they-FBI were taking it seriously. The Seattle Times is reporting on this, didn’t wait.
I blame Boosh.
It’s all his fault!
What part of this don’t you get?
Stranger than fiction
Seattle P.I. haiku
Terrorist – bite me
…24 hours and still unidentified…
If these two guys were reportedly acting suspiciously around a Seattle Planned Parenthood location – I bet this paper would have them on the front page for 3 days straight…..
They shut down the ferry service for a while this morning. Found a suspicious package on one of the ferries making the Bainbridge Island run.
Never liked Haikus
I find them very pointless
So is Seattle
The bottom line is this…never send a child to do an adult’s job. Liberals are still coddling criminals, and conservatives are busy finding them.
http://blacktygrrrr.wordpress.com/2007/03/14/liberals-can-run-and-they-can-hide/
http://blacktygrrrr.wordpress.com/2007/04/25/liberals-talk-about-improving-the-world-conservatives-actually-do-it/
It is okay Seattle, al Qaeda learned from 9/11 and Michael Moore so do not bother to report the two. If they are terrorists, they will surely blow up only a conservative ferry. All libs using the ferries should wear dark blue shirts until further notice.
This is so much fun that I nominate this thread for “Productivity Killer of the Day” award.
Two men case ferry.
Paper holds haiku contest.
Seattle. ‘Nuff said.
Ferry sinks in ‘Sound.
George Bush! The real terrorist.
Hey – my latte’s cold…
Two guys on a boat
One has Nitro, one has goat
Nothing suspicious
Idiot editor
Refusal to print image
Outcome sunk ferry
Moonbat perspective
Consequences discounted
His head in the sand
One who is familiar with certain portayals in books and movies can point to a correlation between certain depictions and real-life occurrances:
Tom Clancy’s Debt of Honor portays the use of a jet airliner as a weapon to destroy the political infrastructure of the US Government / 9-11, jet airliners are used to attack the US.
Recently we have the movie ‘Deja Vu’ where a homegrown terrorist targets a popular ferry system / Now we have suspicious characters seemingly studying a well-used and heavily populated ferry system….
Terrorists ( home-grown and otherwise ) will get their ideas from anywhere they can…. And given today’s atmosphere of global terrorism, and the hints that the actions of these two men are showing, we cannot dismiss them as harmless or bow to politically correct ideals in our quest for safety and security.
That newspaper should no longer be referred to as the Seattle P-I. Now it’s the Seattle P-U (for Post Unintelligencer).
Obviously, the Seattle P-U has no sense of either civic duty or self preservation. The old saying “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” is obviously, to them, a quaint, archaic and possibly conservative notion.
Perhaps, in this spirit they should start to remove their office fire alarms and sprinkler systems…after all, they are not needed if there is no fire…right?
Seattle is Progressive
Ferry Captain is Conservative
Bye-bye conservative. Boom
Awwww…they just posted that they will not pick a winner
I will give them kudos for apologizing
Hey AlohaGuy
You’re haiku is most funny
You have got my vote
Thanks Milwaukee!
They’ve posted a “That was a stupid thing to do…” article, and shut off comments.
The people have spoken (or haiku’d)!
we must haiku all the leftist papers!
Um…never heard of haiku until this thread. Seems like a take-off on the beloved Burma Shave signs of old. But I could be wrong…
As for the photo of the guys…
“Keemo Sabe, Tonto not like men in picture, they look like they up to no good. Have guilty look on their faces”.
Tonto was usually right. But, sadly, that was in another century, in another society. Not this one…gak.
Pretty much that way now as through word of mouth of sanctuary cities have given the terrorists and illegals all the encouragement needed. Some illegals, especially the gangs, are becoming quite brazen knowing law enforcement hands are tied already engaged in domestic terrorism.
OT
Floyd, not exactly…
As I understand it while not exactly the same in English as Japanese, basically in English they are 5 – 7 – 5 syllables, and should reference the season.
so for our hostess on the O’Malkin Factor:
Bright as the summer
Intellect as cold hard steel
Smiles and skewers
Even though it’s a serious situation, I’ve had a good laugh reading some of the haiku’s MM and you guys have posted, good stuff.
Treat news like a joke
Busted by the blogosphere
Looks like we screwed up
Enough Haikus… I need a limerick….
The Seattle P-I is a paper
That was tipped by the Feds of a caper
They refused to assist,
Cair’s butt they did kiss,
Faced with litigation, they decided to play it safer
Floyd…you went 5-7-4
She smiles and skewers brings it to 5-7-5. I just don’t want you to be mistaken for a liberal.
As for limericks, I did not know there were limericks that did not involve a man from Nantucket.
Since we have really gone off track on this one, I hope Ms. Malkin will indulge me. I am going to try and find a way to link the clowns at the Seattle Paper to the theme song from Fraggle Rock. I have no idea why, and I expect this endeavor to fail.
http://blacktygrrrr.wordpress.com/2007/07/01/c3po-fraggle-rock-and-the-log-cabin-republicans/
Dance your cares away
Worries for another day
Let the music play
Hey, it IS a Haiku!
Down in Fraggle Rock!
eric
http://www.blacktygrrrr.wordpress.com
I think the paper stopped the contest because all the haikus were anti-paper!
I don’t understand the racial profiling
thing. Those guys look like the Italian
brothers that ran a pizza place around
the corner from where I grew up many
years ago.
The Seattle P-I –
All the news we feel is fit to print.
arvadadan….
1 – maybe they are, and they were looking at pitching a proposal for a pizza-kitchen on board the ferries…
2 – maybe they are, as more and more pizza places seem to be opening up with middle-eastern owners…
OK, still off topic, but…
It was me, not Floyd… I took out “She” because I actually pronounce “’smI(-&)l
as two syllables.
OK, enough…
I must complain,
Stuck in the Rain,
Our Papers Down Drain.
___________________
PI, three point one four,
FBI asked favor,
we showed them the door.
FBI inquiry
Seattle Haiku answer
From a Starbucks cup
fingercheck … lol
FBI inquired
Seattle Haiku answer
From a Starbucks cup
Liberal Rag!The only reason this paper does well is because Seattle is a seaport.They need it to wrap fish in.
I sent this to the bloggette who treated this incident like it was silly game. Doubt it will change anything but you never know.
About a week after 9/11 occurred, I and my family visited the Pentagon. As I stood looking at the destruction, I was struck by the silence. People just stared. They could not avert their eyes. Tears just rolled down their cheeks. They whispered when talking, if they could talk. Some were obviously military. Many were average American families. There was a little impromptu memorial of flags and photographs. A silent tribute to the men and women lost. The cavalier way in which you dismissed the FBI request for help to combat potential future attacks on America is symptomatic of a phenomenal callousness and a profound lack of understanding that this nation inhabits a dangerous world. I hope that you and your city never have to directly experience a 9/11 incident. But if you do, I hope you visit the scene and listen to the silence.
Michelle Malkin Rocks
Malkin-less Factor Friday
Munchkins rule!
My suck-up for the day!
Thank you, thank you very much!
Just with the Duke lacross players? C’mon. Accusations can do damage even after vindication. I note that this entry is in the “Jihadists” category.
Also consider that they may be looking to reduce their legal liability.
The Duke LaCrosse players were accused of crimes, dragged into court, held hostage by an out of control prosecutor and that went on for over a year!
This case involves 2 individuals who are persons of interest. Nothing more at this time.
This story has now been out for over 24 hours – and these two have yet to come forward – why?
If they have nothing to hide – they will be vindicated in a matter of hours or days – no prolonged media exposure, as in the Duke case.
If you’re near the scene of an incident, and someone sees you and either takes your picture or gives the police a description – and that ‘artist rendering’ of you shows up on the news or in the papers as a ‘person of interest’, they qualify that each and every time and state that the person is not a suspect.
They’ve done that here as well. No one has accused these two of criminal activity – only suspicious activity.
There is no prolonged harm in posting their pictures. Give me a break.
Almost as bad as the Rutger’s girl who claims she’s damaged for life because of Imus’ derogatory words.
Ridiculous.
I don’t follow the Seattle PI reasoning. I’m sure they’ve published pictures in the past of people wanted for questioning connected to a crime.
What’s the difference?
You don’t think it could be because they’re like, you know, Muslim or anything do you?
They read the P-I and wonder what they look like.
Federal funding stopped immediately for any and all ’sanctuary’ cities/states.
“I do not understand why protection of our country and our way of life has to be such an uphill battle.”
#7 it is because the MSM such as the SPI don’t share the values of our way of life and think globalism & multiculturalism are higher values than freedom.
I heard the story on ABC (Always B…Crap) radio tonight where the reporterette went out of her way to state the FBI wasn’t in any way trying to racially profile but only react to behaviorial issues! I about vomited in the car. The MSM & PC people will kill us all if we don’t intervene soon!
Hardworking immigrants
just doing the jobs
that American whities won’t do
So says Jerry Rivers
so cry me a river
and all the rest of that poo.
Crossing the line
done it 500 times
down in old New Mexico way
While white politicians
and lib academicians
drag their feet which are clearly of clay.
12 million now
and 12 million more
cross straight through the 2000 mile door
And if it ain’t stopped,
by John Does and by cops,
these creeps will become Amerexican anti-hero folklore.
*Peace*
(Phooey!)
… still waiting…
If there really is a terrorist plot against the ferries, and it succeeds, then the P-I’s refusal to assist the FBI could cost it a lot. It could put them out of business, though it would probably cost the editors and editorial board their jobs.
I suspect that Hearst would probably fire the entire lot of them should a terrorism strike against the ferry goes down and the terrorists who did the deed were the ones in the photos.
We are all still waiting…
…STILL WAITING…