This report from today's Dallas Morning News carried the jump page headline, "KC killings called quick, random". The online version doesn't have the jump page so this headline doesn't appear here. But trust me, it is in the print version today, April 15, 2014. Click here and read the story if you want to know why I wrote the letter below to the Editor of this award-winning paper:
Who defines "random" as "calculated"?
Your jump page headline of the Cross killings grossly misleads readers at best, and at worst it frames his calculated, heinous slayings as unpredictable, chance events that could have happened to anyone anywhere.
The report chronicles Cross's lifelong anti-Semitism, bigotry, and fanatical devotion to the twisted ideology of white supremacy. When he went to the Jewish Community Center to hunt and kill Jews he was taking the next step in his lifelong quest. How can you describe this story as "random" just because a local cop used the word?
I'm from Boston, birthplace of ideas like the 2nd Amendment. I suspect and fear that the Texas tilt towards gun rights quietly bends your word choice to promote notions like, "Hey, well, you can't outlaw crazy; look how he randomly killed his victims?" when in fact Cross was hunting Jews. Change the headline to "Jews hunted down" and next you'll have to consider the fact that the Founders enshrined our right to bear long rifles that took several minutes to load and fire one shot that usually missed its target...not the right to bear the military-grade hardware Cross so loved.
