Philadelphia has an out-of-control murder rate, but that didn’t keep the editors of my former paper from pandering.
Will Bunch, the Daily News’s pre-eminent blogger, was justifiably horrified by the front page, which he said needed words like “Pathetic Loser” in huge letters.
Without those words, I worry that something like this image merely becomes a poster for the locked bedroom wall of every deranged Travis Bickle-style loner who’s out there, or even that Cho’s message of hate — that the only way to deal with an inequitable society is to slaughter rich kids (which most of his victims were not, by the way) might resonate with someone out there.
Instead, citizens of a city that is unable to control its own awful gun violence will, when they walk into their corner bodega or Wawa today, stare into a cocked and loaded handgun. It’s not what Philadelphia needs right now.
More here.