Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

Yesterday Liz Trotta of Fox News made a dangerous mistake on air. Today she apologized. Unlike Hillary Clinton, she did not say she "regretted" if "anyone was offended". She said she was "sorry". That is how it is done. Contrast her apology with Hillary Clinton’s non-apology for the RFK assassination remarks.

Liz Trotta made a mistake. She took responsibility for it and apologized. For many the apology will not be enough. For me it is.

When I heard and saw her remarks yesterday I was stunned. Coming from a respected journalist like Trotta it was mind-boggling. So, I am glad she apologized. The permission slip that Hillary Clinton handed out with her RFK remarks will be hard to withdraw, and these moments are likely to repeat themselves this election season, but at least Liz Trotta has stepped up and tried to repair the damage she caused.

With her apology she gets the benefit of the doubt from me. She also gets the benefit of the doubt because I am familiar with her early work in conflict zones, especially Bangladesh in 1971 and 1972. She was one of the few American journalists who were on the ground in Bangladesh reporting on the genocide that killed up to 3 million people. Of her many reports from Bangladesh, one stands out to me. I provide the below NBC News report from 1972 without comment:

I was a child in 1971 when the Pakistani army and their Islamist collaborators were butchering my people by the millions and raping Bengali women by the hundreds of thousands. I am one of the lucky ones because I live today. I, like my parents’ generation before me, live with the scars of genocide. As part of my own coping mechanism I document the history of 1971 for my child and future generations. To do that, I rely on reports from Liz Trotta and others. Journalists like Liz Trotta, against very difficult odds, played a part in keeping the perpetrators of genocide from burying the truth.

For her part in telling our story, I am sincerely grateful. I know that her comments yesterday are not excused by her brave reporting from decades ago. But, still, I thought it may be worthwhile sharing with you a different view of the person who made those comments yesterday.

[Cross posted at the Daily Kos]

bangladesh genocide