Cheers & Jeers for CBS Evening News

How can a network get one story so right and so wrong within 30 minutes? I watched CBS News with Katie Couric this evening, to see how the nations first solo woman anchor would report the news about the terrible school shooting in Pennsylvania today.

Unlike the coverage I'd watched earlier on NBC, Katie didn't let me down. She reported that little girls had been killed, and that less than a week ago other little girls had met a violent and tragic death. I thought to myself that it took a woman, with a woman’s sensibilities to recognize that little girls are under attack in this country and we'd better wake up and figure out why.

CBS gave extended coverage to the story, nearly nine minutes of the 30 minute broadcast. NBC had given the story less coverage, choosing instead to move ahead to the 'important' news the day -- of political scandal and fallout from the Foley incident.

I sat back thinking its good having a woman at the top of the news division, particularly one with two daughters. Couric seemed appropriately horrified by this senseless tragedy.

So how did CBS News choose to explain why this happened? In a new segment called “Free Speech,” CBS invited Brian Rohrbough, who lost his son during the Columbine shooting rampage in 1999, to provide some context for this tragedy. The following is a transcript of Rohrbough’s comments:

“This country is in a moral freefall. For over two generation the public school system is taught in a moral vacuum, expelling God from the school and from the government. Replacing him with evolution, where the strong kill the weak without moral consequences. And life has no inherent value. We teach there are no absolutes, no right or wrong. And I assure you the murder of innocent children is always wrong, including by abortion. Abortion has diminished the value of children. Suicide has become an acceptable action, and has further emboldened these criminals. We are seeing an epidemic increase in murder-suicide attacks on our children. Sadly, our schools are not safe. In fact, we now witness that within our schools our children have become a target of terrorists from within the United States.”

This is COMPLETE and UTTER BULLSHIT, and actually CONTRIBUTES to THE PROBLEM.

Not only did Rohrbough fail to address the misogyny inherent in the two latest shootings (and many over the past decade), he contributed to it with this tirade against a woman’s right to make reproductive health decisions.

The sense of entitlement some men and boys think they have over women and girls contributed to this tragedy, and the ones that have come before. We need to take a serious look at how we raise boys, and what society allows some men and boys to get away with – shrugging off bad behavior with a 'boys will be boys' attitude.

And is Mr. Rohrbough blind to the contribution separation of church and state has made to why so many people in the US take part in worship services? Teaching a religious concept over sound science won’t stop school shootings, but it will kill any chance our children have of getting the kind of education they need to compete in a global economy.