Yesterday saw the nation's news dominated by continuous coverage of the shooting at the Washington Naval Yard. Twelve innocents were slaughtered, leaving behind grieving family and friends as well as a nation horrified at the carnage.  They deserve, and have, our sympathy and compassion, as do the thousands of people at the Naval Yard and elsewhere nearby who were terrorized. But for the major political and media actors on the nation's stage, it was a day of following familiar scripts. Cable news outlets went directly into continuous live coverage, endlessly repeating the few facts that became available, and adding quite a number of non-facts based on police scanners and law enforcement sources passing along raw data that had not been vetted. The old adage from TV news, "If it bleeds, it leads," was the rule of the day, all day. The alleged killer, Aaron Alexis, shot dead at the Naval Yard, instantly became famous, following in the steps of other villains who perpetrated...(Read Full Post)