I caught a segment on CBS This Morning that paid tribute to the late, 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon.  His prolific career at CBS spanned almost fifty years before his life ended at the age of seventy-three in a car crash on the West Side highway.  As a personal associate and self-described “understudy” of Mr. Simon, Scott Pelley was invited to profile the man.  Of Mr. Simon Pelley noted, he had “a sharp intolerance for injustice.  And he had equal opportunity rage for every injustice committed in every corner of this earth.”  This was the source of the man’s immense courage.  Pelley then recalled Simon’s interview with an Israeli general in which he baited the general by proclaiming “you’re one of greatest generals Israel has ever produced . . .” before delivering “a Bob Simon (’roundhouse’) punch” in the form of a question:  “so why are you killing children?”  This was followed by all three anchors simultaneously sighing and nodding knowingly.

It is curious but telling that of all the world’s injustices Pelley chose this example.  Admittedly, it’s challenging to imagine a scenario that justifies killing children but no context was given.  I hardly think of Jews – the moral exemplars of society according to the Bible – as the poster kids for bad behavior or “tripping the intolerance meter.”  While Jews have certainly suffered horrible injustice as part of their heritage (#RememberTheHolocaust?), they do not embrace violence in their culture. In fact, their story is one of the great epic stories of the human spirit overcoming injustice that was allegedly Bob Simon’s trademark.  No disrespect to Mr. Simon but the segment substantiates the premise that narrative advancement passes for news or journalism today.  That the supposed fourth branch of government (the news media) has dissolved into this is an injustice – in and of itself – to the viewers who tune in for objective news.