Eight Paragraphs Down

I can’t say I’m surprised it took eight paragraphs before the New York Times deigned to tell us what might be behind (have motivated) the arrest of 17 people in Ontario over the last couple of days. In fact it takes them six paragraphs before they even name any names. And of course they hasten first to make sure we know most of these men (not yet identified as Islamists) are “young people,” shades of the French linguistic obsession with les jeunes, lest we might think them representative of a hostile ideology. This political bowdlerization is accomplished in paragraph four. Think for a moment how the Times would have constructed an article (has constructed many articles) about the malfeasance of US servicemen. They sure wouldn’t bury the lede. They would scream “American failure” at the top of their semi-refined lungs in paragraph one. Oh, well,… why doI even bother? (Even CNN has in their lede that the terrorists were motivated by Al Qaeda ideology.)