The Shirley Sherrod Affair

The Shirley Sherrod affair inspires probing questions about racism, media, politics, personal redemption, U.S History and libel law.

How can someone who had racist inclinations overcome the motive for vengeance (Shirley Sherrod herself)? How could the White House rush to seal a story so that its major accomplishment of passing financial regulation gets its full airing and credit, when someone’s personal reputation and livelihood is at stake? How can media outlets, interest groups and bloggers not be ashamed when rushing to put out stories simply because the public find them salacious? How should President Obama, as our first President of color, handle issues related to race? How can an insignificant blogger have such an influence on the national media? How can a snippet of tape from such a non-objective source be trusted without the U.S. Department of Agriculture, NAACP, or Fox News questioning the objectivity and fairness of the source? And how can we allow major media news sources like MSNBC, and especially FOX, to have their own political agenda, which actually dominates its news broadcasting function, yet be held to be objective and fair by the public?

With all these interesting questions bought to bear, how could the Worcester Telegram and Gazette editorial page concentrate its inquiry exclusively on how one interest group, the NAACP, did not get the facts right? (See article "So easily Snookered" http://www.telegram.com/article/20100724/NEWS/7240334/1020/opinion