More on the “it’s newsworthy because it’s hypocrisy!” front: In the lead to this story about 125 people arrested for child pornography, the AP felt the need to pinpoint a Bible camp counselor and a Boy Scout leader. The only other person mentioned in the article is a “pharmaceutical researcher.”

Out of 125 perverts, they managed to only mention those affiliated with organized religion, a group that promotes traditional masculinity and the drug companies. I bet that’s a representative sample.

It’s hard not to make the obvious conclusion that this is simply another blow in the war against religion, men and capitalism. One could say the wire service picked occupations that would let perverts access kids, but the pharmaceutical researcher doesn’t quite square with that.

Indeed, rival (and in this case better) news agency Reuters had a rather different sampling of occupations: “Police officers, high school teachers, and a border patrol agent.” Not quite sure where the border patrol bit comes in — and law enforcement, a frequent target for the left, is included twice — but at least the selections are organized around the idea of government employees with some kind of power. And bringing school teachers into this dispells any notion of conscious liberal bias.

Which brings up the issue of why the AP didn’t mention teachers (plural!) instead of the pharmaceutical researcher. Isn’t that a lot more newsworthy?

Robert VerBruggen blogs at http://robertsrationale.blogspot.com.