Marine kills murderer who killed policeman

Of course, since it's in the Boston Globe, that was not the headline of the story. It was Feud turned deadly in N.H.

Here's the lede:

New Hampshire authorities said yesterday that they will not press charges against a former Marine who stepped into a deadly shooting and killed a 24-year-old high school dropout who had moments earlier fatally shot a police officer.

The former Marine, Gregory W. Floyd, 49, was driving with his son along Route 116 in Franconia on Friday night when he saw Liko Kenney, 24, shoot Franconia Police Corporal Bruce McKay, 48, four times in the torso. After Kenney drove his Toyota Celica over McKay as the officer lay on the ground, Floyd grabbed the officer's service weapon and shot and killed Kenney.

Mark Steyn has a better reaction to this than I do (he always does):

What's slightly unnerving is the assumptions underpinning the Bostonian reporters' opening paragraph - that somehow a quick-witted citizen-hero is the guy who has some splainin' to do. Mr Floyd is exactly the kind of fellow you want around when trouble strikes. He seems not to have been armed himself, but he figured out what was happening very quickly and managed to retrieve the one available weapon from the dead officer. Rather than talking about "not pressing charges", the state of New Hampshire ought to be thanking him for his bravery and improvisation.

But here's my point. The way the story is written makes a dramatic difference in the way the facts are presented. That is the essential difference between two opposing viewpoints. In the case of the Globe reporters, the Marine does not have to face charges of murder. In my headline, the Marine is a hero.

Bias in reporting does not always mean telling a lie, omitting facts or the editorial decision that story "A" is worth reporting and story "B" is not. Most often the bias is in the perspective of the reporter. The facts are all there, but the viewpoint is critical.