Here’s the video released by the FBI today of the Boston bombing suspects. Note the two relatively young looking men, one wearing a black ball cap and one wearing white:
And here are the photos released; click for much larger versions:
In part I add those photos and video to this blog to highlight the irresponsibility of major media reports yesterday. Erik Wemple at the Washington Post has done an admirable job of noting media errors — major errors of fact that we could have expected to see less of after the terrible mistakes during after the Newtown massacre.
Yesterday, John King at CNN went on a riff about the “dark-skinned male” suspect. It’s very difficult in these images to determine ethnicity, but these suspects do not appear to be black. They look like dark-haired white guys to me.
So let’s add another error to the many other ridiculous ones.
Disappointing coverage, for sure.
UPDATE: Here’s John King’s rather lame explanation of his parroting of a “source” using “dark-skinned male” on Wednesday. Tweeted late this afternoon:
Source of that description was a senior government official. And I asked, are you sure? But I’m responsible. What I am not is racist.
— John King (@JohnKingCNN) April 18, 2013