Is This Really a Good Idea?

Trey Smith

Look, I understand how the news biz works. You have all these news organizations competing against each other for viewers and advertisers. There is immense pressure to "scoop" your competitors. So, you are always looking for an angle that others may not be covering as much or at all.

In their efforts to cover the Boston Marathon bombings from as many different angles as possible, CNN has posted one article that, on reflection, may not be such a good idea. While the premise of this article is about the idea that the carnage may have perpetrated by a "lone wolf," the two reporters tell how easy it is to create a homemade bomb!

It would be one thing if they merely pointed out that instructions for homemade bomb making can be easily found on the internet. In my mind, that sort of general statement would be sufficient. But our intrepid reporters go far beyond that by listing several ingredients that a person could utilize to make such a bomb! Fortunately, they do not provide a step-by-step how-to manual, but if a particular reader was interested in replicating the carnage in Boston, they certainly have pointed such a person in the right direction.

When I see stories of this nature, I cringe. There are enough people in this country with a violent political agenda or homicidal mental illness that you don't want to feed their fantasies -- fantasies that they might decide to play out in real life. What if there are a few individuals who enjoyed the unthinkable that played out in Boston? What if they thought to themselves, "Gee, I'd like to go down in infamy by planting a bomb somewhere, but I don't know a thing about bomb making and so I wouldn't know where to start"?

Well, thanks to CNN, they now have several search terms to Google!!

I just shake my head.