There was an interesting piece of journalism in the August 20 issue of the Union Leader's Sunday News. It was an article on Jesse Murabito by Michael Cousineau and Pat Hammond, two usually fine writers. It began with a one-sentence lead: "The more one learns about Jesse Murabito, the less one seems to know." The next three paragraphs proceeded to say, in essence, that some people remembered her as vivacious and competent, some didn't remember her at all, and one person recalled her as obsessive and "overly possessive of her children."
The rest of the article goes on to describe a woman who led a full and interesting life, but those misleading and empty first four paragraphs cap several weeks of negative and one-sided reporting in the Union Leader about Jesse Murabito, and this needs to be exposed. I don't know if Jesse Murabito is telling the truth; her perseverance in protecting her children is not proof positive that her husband is guilty of what she's accused him of. But the Union Leader has seen fit to disparage Jesse Murabito and either leaves Mark Murabito alone or reports favorably on the justice of his claims.
The Union Leader is doing exactly what Nacky Loeb said editorially it doesn't do: filter the news through ideology. But in the Murabito case, the conservative principles it has said time and again it supports have colored its reporting. Jesse Murabito's biggest crime seems to be that she doesn't know her place. Rightly or wrongly, she decided to fight the system. She may have made misjudgments and been inconsistent, as Jim Finnegan pointed out with apparent glee in a recent editorial. But her defiance has been characterized by such adjectives as "obsessed," "compulsive," and "overly-protective," while Mark Murabito's "obsession" with getting his children back (and getting back at Jesse) is seen simply as one man trying to get his justice. She is "frenetic" in guarding her children; he is simply exercising a calm, rational response in the heated situation.
The picture the Union Leader has painted of Jesse Murabito is of a woman who is out of her place. The newspaper emphasizes inconsistencies in character and exaggerates what anyone would agree would be normal psychological responses for a person under intense pressure. Why? Because there is no room in its ideology for someone whose intelligence and drive force her to fight and resist. This is not to say that Jesse Murabito is right. But the fact that the Union Leader finds it necessary to demean someone it does not agree with is in line with the kind of conservatism it espouses: resist change, fear those who are different, and disguise its meanness by calling it truth.
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