-By Warner Todd Huston
Mia Farrow’s brother, artist Patrick Farrow, committed suicide Tuesday, June 16. As expected, on the following day the Associated Press released a wire story about the incident. But, the odd thing about the short recount of the Farrows’s lives and the account of the discovery of Patrick’s lifeless body is that that the AP found some reason to slip in an attack on George W. Bush into the story. Worse, the AP used the fact of a U.S. soldier’s death in Iraq as a vehicle to slam the past president. What did BDS have to do with the Farrows, Patrick’s death, and a report on the same?
The customary information about Patrick Farrow’s death was duly reported, of course. We were informed of the laundry list of facts. We got Farow’s relation to actress Mia Farrow; a bit about her life; some on Patrick’s life’s work in sculpture and art; and some of the initial findings surrounding his death also appear. All good and proper reporting, of course. But then, at the very end, we get to the anomaly of the story, a lapsing into Bush Derangement Syndrome that is completely out of place with the rest of the tale.
Here is the segment, all piled up at the end of the wire story:
Last year, a nephew of Mia Farrow and Patrick Farrow who had spent nearly 20 years in the Army was killed in Iraq.
Sgt. 1st Class Jason F. Dene, 37, died of injuries suffered in an incident in Baghdad, according to the Department of Defense, which gave no other details about his death except to say it was under investigation.
Patrick Farrow told The Associated Press after his nephew’s May 25, 2008, death he felt as though he had been “kicked in the stomach.”
“I’ve been opposed to this war since the beginning,” Farrow said then. “This lying Bush administration has gotten into this thing that has now killed my nephew. It’s up close and personal, and I am deeply angry.”
What does this have to do with Patrick’s death? What does it have to do with a general piece about his life, for that matter? Was Patrick a major activist against the Iraq war and Bush’s policies or well known in his anti-war positions? No, not really. Was Patrick’s career somehow intimately connected to his nephew to the point where the nephew’s non-combat death in Iraq might cause a major life’s crisis or heavily affect Patrick’s public life? Was it connected to the suicide? No to all of that. In fact, there is little by way of public knowledge connecting the hero soldier nephew and Patrick Farrow. There seems to be little else but mere relationship between Nephew and Uncle.
It’s very hard to justify a discussion of the death of Sgt. Jason F. Dene — certainly a lamentable incident — being added to a short wire story about the unconnected suicide death of uncle Patrick Farrow. But it did give the AP an opportunity to express rage against President Bush once again. BDS reveals itself at the most indelicate moments, doesn’t it?
____________
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, RedState.com, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
Fair Use: This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in my efforts to advance understanding of political, human rights, economic, democracy, and social justice issues, etc. I believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research, educational, or satirical purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site/blog for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
So AP, in accurately reporting that Farrow blamed his nephew’s death on Bush, is deranged? I think your real beef is with the dead man for hating Bush in the first place. Speak ill of him, won’t you?
So out of a whole life, the main focus should be that he didn’t like a president? His life’s work in art is only with a few lines, but half the story about how he hated a president is far more important in a retrospective?
Dude, you REALLY have a skewed vision of what constitutes a well written article.
How is that the main focus of the AP article?
Where did I say “main focus”?
But as far as focus goes, why is it ANY “focus”? It seems a very minor and prosaic incident of the man’s life.
Now, if this was a three page retrospective of Farrow’s like, I can see it being added. But this is a short retrospective about a man’s entire life and work. The incident with his nephew has no part in such a story… unless your goal is to beat up Bush and hate on the war instead of talking about Farrow and his life.