From print to broadcast to online, there's very little the media's gotten right about this Boston tragedy before getting it wrong multiple times.
The New York Post exaggerated the death toll from Monday's Boston Marathon bombings by 400 percent before joining InfoWars in misidentifying three different people as possible suspects throughout the week. And during last night's lurid Twitter-Reddit-cable news orgy of speculation -- as shootouts and manhunts across the Boston metro area unfolded on smartphones and computer screens worldwide -- more innocent names were circulated and smeared before the media mob moved on just as quickly.
Excellent reporting on this misreporting, by The Atlantic's Alexis Madrigal and others, suggest that once sufficiently frenzied, there's not too much to separate the Internet kangaroo court from mobs of the past in making something huge out of literally nothing.
Not to be outdone or made irrelevant, right-wing radio has also been participating in the witch-hunt. San Francisco's own Michael Savage has a theory, a theory that somehow made it all the way to the halls of Congress.
The curious case of Robert Graves -- the 66-year-old accused of nonchalantly executing a noisy reveler who lived in his building -- has careened from tragic to baffling to bizarre.
It's unclear how Graves paid the bills (he is now being represented by a court-appointed public defender). But, for $27.50 -- plus shipping and handling -- he'd send you a copy of his book, The Art of Psychic Dice.
Graves' self-published tome comes with its own warning: This book "advocates an optimistic theory of applying psychokinesis while playing casino craps. All gambling is risky. Although the author believes that anyone who applies this theory will increase his or her chances of either winning cash or creating a moment in which psychokinesis visibly manifests, in no event will Robert E. Graves be liable for any action taken by the reader."
The author, who remains in custody on $3 million bail, is liable for violent actions he allegedly took on his own.
BART police released a sketch of the suspect who shot and killed a woman at the Richmond BART station last month, hoping someone will come forward with information on his whereabouts.
The shooting occurred on March 14 at about 6 p.m. in front of the Transit Office at the Richmond BART station, killing 34-year-old Raymond Harris, of San Pablo.
A witness gave police a description of the suspect, who apparently looks sorta like this guy to your right.
I ride a bike for many reasons --and almost all of them are boring. Convenience, independence, a desire to be passably healthy and to spend as little money as possible on my own transportation -- all of these factors contribute to make cycling my preferred method of conveyance. These are, with some variation, the same reasons that most regular bicyclists choose to get around the way that they do and they are all perfectly mundane, personal, and apolitical.
So I'm always a little surprised how any discussion about cycling can easily devolve into a frothy-mouthed squabble over city planning or the California Vehicle Code. But really, I shouldn't be surprised, says Jason Henderson, an associate professor of geography at SFSU, because, as he puts it, the "allocation of street space" is always an inherently political proposition.
This might make for an interesting beer commercial.
A San Francisco football fan accused of hurling two 40-ounce bottles of Miller High Life at a convenience store clerk was acquitted after video showed he was merely defending himself -- from a glass of water and a bat. Jurors deliberated for about an hour on Monday before deciding that 54-year-old Pablo Rodriguez was not guilty.
Rodriguez, a neighborhood activist, was arrested Nov. 19, 2012, after spending the evening hanging out with friends at a Valencia Street bus stop, drinking beer, and watching Monday night football through the window of a nearby restaurant.
