All that and a bag of wackos

The minister of a small church in central Florida hijacked the nation's common sense this week.  Late Thursday afternoon, after days of coverage of Terry Jones' rants, he now claims that he's canceled his plans to burn the Quran on the anniversary of this country's darkest day.

This morning, the folks at Poynter issued some guidelines for coverage of what they called "a lone voice with a tiny following."

Among their suggestions:

 * Cover the reaction, not the fanatic. There are some creative responses to Jones' lunacy. Mother Jones wrote about a group that is rallying people to send a Quran to Afghanistan for every text Jones burns. Local churches and other organizations have planned dozens of events  to draw people away from the Quran burning. Already the response is greater than the event itself. Your coverage should reflect that.

* Talk about how you will react to confrontations ahead of time. A little pushing and shoving can look like a big kerfuffle depending on how you describe it or crop the image. Have a plan to ensure the events are accurately portrayed, so that production work, like creating a video tease or sending out a tweet, doesn't mislead your audience or undermine your journalistic purpose.

* Help your audience understand why this is hate speech, not a simple protest. Hate speech targets an entire group for a particular characteristic. In this case it's belief in the Quran as a holy scripture. A protest denounces a certain action or set of circumstances, not an entire group of people. Jones has justified his plan by claiming the Quran is "evil" and "Islam is of the Devil." He and his followers will burn the Quran with guns holstered at their sides. He admits the act is likely to incite violence.

Fox News announced their intention NOT to cover the burning of Islam's sacred book.  The Associated Press also distributed guidelines but didn't go so far as to say they would not cover the event.  The Columbia Journalism Review says the AP standards were too little, too late.  Perhaps Poynter was a little late to the party, as well.  Joel Mears of the CJR entreats us to "push back against a PR stunt and run in the other direction of a media pack all too ready to pounce on a flame."

I agree, Joel.  By the way, we were among the local Kansas City TV station news departments, who, along with the KC Star, covered the Ringling Brothers circus elephants eating lunch at the Sprint Center this week.

I know this comparison is a stretch but when will we stop being lemmings?