Misplaced priorities

TO CNN for its upside-down coverage of an IED explosion event in Afghanistan that killed a soldier and seriously wounded a journalist. CNN reported the event this way: “A CBS News reporter was seriously injured on Friday in a roadside bombing in Afghanistan that also killed a U.S. soldier.” Other media, including the Los Angeles Times and Associated Press, also led with the reporter angle. The soldier was Spc. Abraham S. Wheeler. He was 22. Cami McCormick, the injured CBS News correspondent, was hospitalized and is recovering, which is good news. But editors err when they rate a wounded war correspondent as more newsworthy than a killed soldier. Reporting a soldier’s death as an “also killed” addendum is disturbing, perhaps reflecting a general public boredom with the wars its nation is fighting. But that is no excuse.