The news from CBS about correspondent Lara Logan’s assault in Egypt is awful beyond words.
At a time like this, we all feel helpless. And angry. The perpetrators, anonymous men in an angry mob, may never see justice.
Perhaps we can channel that frustration and anger towards righting a wrong closer to home. To some other outrage . . . say . . . the reaction to Logan’s assault from a fellow at the NYU Center for Law and Security, Nir Rosen.
Nir Rosen deleted some of his worst comments about Logan on his Twitter feed, but . . . it’s the Internet. It’s never gone forever.
I’m sure Rosen will apologize at some point, and perhaps we’ll get some tut-tutting statement from NYU about the need for “civility” and “restraint” and “sensitivity.” Brows will be furrowed. Maybe they’ll hold a seminar about technology and emotional reactions to breaking news events.
But let’s just remember one thing going forward: Nir Rosen believed this was the right moment to let the world know that he “ran out of sympathy for her” and that we should “remember her role as a major war monger” and that we “have to find humor in the small things.”
Your move, NYU.
UPDATE: Nir Rosen has departed Twitter. Your reaction to this development probably depends on whether you think the offense in this circumstance is the ability to broadcast that type of reaction to the crime to the entire Internet, or whether the problem is the reaction itself.
ANOTHER UPDATE: I just called the NYU Center on Law and Security, and they told me they will be posting a statement in response to this matter on their web site within an hour or so (roughly by 11 a.m.).