R.I.P., Carol Whitehead -- you've earned it
LIFEembedDrawImage(82558447); One certainty in coverage of George Till's murder has been Randall Terry's consistent reference to Tiller as a mass murderer. Terry repeated that message again Wednesday as part of a summer lecture series sponsored by The Rutherford Institute.
Jason Bacaj of the Charlottesville Daily Progress reported Terry's provocative remarks dutifully, but saved this blindingly relevant and local detail for his last paragraph:
Terry's question-and-answer session was interrupted by a sudden commotion. It was later learned that the wife of John W. Whitehead, the conservative institute's founder, had collapsed upstairs from where the speech was taking place and subsequently died. Further information was unavailable late Wednesday.
Gee, it seems that when the wife of an event's host dies during the event, it might merit higher placement in the story, especially when it appears after boilerplate Terry remarks such as these:
During his speech, Terry likened Tiller's killer to Nat Turner, a slave who led the deadliest rebellion in the antebellum South.
Terry went on to say that doctors who perform abortions and women who get them are "cut from the same cloth as the mass murderers of history."
He spoke out against diversity and multicultural programs at colleges, saying the programs teach students what to think rather than how to think.
The Daily Progress has since published a brief obituary of Carol Whitehead, drawing mostly from a press release issued by The Rutherford Institute.