Nir Rosen Should Be Ashamed—but Not Ruined

Nir Rosen’s thoughtless tweets about Lara Logan were “grotesque”—but they shouldn’t “eclipse an often-heroic career” of “intrepid” war reporting, writes Michelle Goldberg in the Daily Beast. Indeed, today’s media “has an awful way of reducing us all to the worst thing we’ve ever done.” And “the more we live in public, the more we need to develop some sort of mercy for those who briefly let the dark parts of themselves slip out.”

It was “indefensible” when Rick Sanchez suggested Jews run the media, but also “harrowing” to see “a man undone so quickly by a flash of his own seething id.” A Marie Claire blogger was deeply remorseful for a “nasty” comment about fat people, but the comment immediately defined her. As for Rosen, he “apologized fulsomely and sincerely, and has kept apologizing”—and it’s clear he’s truly sorry. “When there’s genuine contrition, there should also be forgiveness,” Goldberg writes. (More Nir Rosen stories.)