I’m rather surprised by the absence of cite requests for all the “facts” presented in this thread.
Off the top of my head, I can only think of three big media cases about whites accused of doing bad things to blacks: Brawley, Byrd, and the whole Duke imbroglio. On the other side, we had the collossal spectacle of the OJ trial, the Kobe Bryant trial, and the Susan Smith nightmare. What other interracial crimes and allegations have gotten significant media coverage?
No one in this thread has presented any evidence that there is a disparity in media exposure going on here. Oh yeah, no one except me in post 8, where I show that there is bias that promotes overexposure of white victims relative to non-whites. For a thread in GD, I would expect a bit more than hunches and feelings and speculation based on perception-biased hypotheticals.
Also, just because there is no nationwide media blitz campaign about a particular crime doesn’t mean it won’t be picked up by series like Dateline or Court TV. Every time I turn on MSNBC on the weekend, I see shows talking about crimes like the one under discussion. Crimes, I might add, involving white victims; never see much about blacks or anyone else, for that matter. So I have no doubt that this crime will get all the airplay anyone could ever want, if they just look for it.
Otherwise, all I have is my opinion, based on my BA in Journalism from the University of Northern Colorado (1982), twenty years being a newspaper reporter and editor, six years as a broadcast reporter and news director, and five years of teaching newswriting and mass communications to college freshmen and sophomores. But other than that, nope. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Sorry.
Great. Please point in the various cites you’ve provided exactly where it is that there is data regarding the reporting of black on white versus white on black homicide. I’ve perused what you offered without seeing where that might be.
I think the point is getting lost that this is not Joe Black Guy shooting Joe White Guy over a dispute. If reports are correct this is one the most hard to fathom, brutal and depraved random killings, ever. The actual crime is worse than what the Mansons did. Yes, I know the difference in killing a celebrity and a regular person, but come on- castration, mutilation, sodomy, rape, burning bodies, torture, bleach- this is a very rare crime. For it to get zero national attention is bizarre- so bizarre that one would think there is a reson, and the only sensible one would be the race angle, that the media doesn’t want to rile up whites.
The only one in recent memory I can recall coming close to this was a woman cutting open another one to get her about to be born baby, but at least there, there is an actual reason behind the crime, and that one got attention nationally. Even the angle of ‘how does an alleged carjacking turn into this’- the opportunity to delve into how the mind works, is fascinating.
Wow, that’s the first time I’ve ever been told that three decades of experience in a specific field doesn’t count for anything except “opinion.” The last time I was asked to serve on a discussion panel for the Colorado Press Association, it was based entirely on my years of journalism experience, and nobody said, “Yeah, but it’s just your opinion.”
This makes me question the validity of the last semester paper I submitted in post-modern lit, in which I cited an interview with Michael Herr about his observations in Vietnam. I’m surprised the professor didn’t kick that back at me as “just Michael Herr’s opinion.” You’ve set a whole new standard for supporting arguments in which first-person witnessing of a trend simply doesn’t count because it … well, just my opinion.
Defense Attorney: “So, Mister Jones, what did you see?”
Witness: “I saw the defendant shoot the victim in the head.”
Defense Attorney: “So, it’s just **your opinion ** that the defendant killed the witness, then, isn’t it?”
I’m a bit surprised at your petulant response. It is just your opinion, if you have nothing else to support the assertion. It certainly may be informed by your experiences, but it remains your opinion.
Or are you claiming now that it is fact that black on white homicides are reported on less frequently than white on black homicides just because you say so?
People with 30 years experience with anything may still nevertheless have wildly varying opinions. That should be obvious to you, with all your years of experience.
(I mean, even Fox News must have journalists with 30+ years of experience, and look at them!)
Oh, and if you get the chance, could you point out the relevant data in the cites you flung up there before.
I was a bit puzzled too, in GD. Wouldn’t about 2/3 of the GD threads of the past six years (i.e., the 2/3 entitled “GWB Is An Evil Idiot, Agree Or Disagree?” or its functional equivalent (a proposition by the way with which I agree)) be voided on the grounds that the poster had not personally administered an IQ test or hooked the President up to an evil-ometer? Yet I don’t think those posts were invalid or “hard to understand.”
I just read the Wiki article and in the interest of full disclosure, it says that the mutilation is not confirmed (however, weirdly, it appears to cite a white power magazine for this proposition, and all the other accounts, including Snopes, report the mutilation as fact).
But yes, certainly, that aspect, and the gang raping of the male victim, were what caught my eye as setting this apart.
That’s my point – there is NO relevant data available from the very industries that are accused of bias. You can search the websites of both of those organizations (or the trade journals, both of which I subscribed to for many years) and not find any hard data. The only hard data I’ve ever seen is in the form of surveys, which do nothing more than measure … (wait for it) … opinions.
So, all we have are opinions. Yours (based on your years in journalism), mine (I’ve already listed my experience), and Bill O’Reilly’s (who’d probably agree with me, except when it came to his own meal ticket.) I don’t know about you, but Bill and I would be called “expert witnesses,” although probably on different sides of the issue. And if you want opinions that disagree with mine, call any of a number of colleagues of mine, with whom I’ worked side-by-side for many years: Dallas Heltzell, assistant editorial page editor of the Denver Post; Rob Reuteman, City Editor at the Rocky Mountain News; Forrest Herschberger, Editor of the Sterling Journal-Advocate; Donovan Henderson, reporter for the Greeley Tribune; Ed Otte, Executive Director of the Colorado Press Associaton. And when you are finished talking with all of them, will you have any hard data?
Nope. Just opinions.
To add to the rareness, when was the last time you ever heard of black male raping another male, outside of prison? Or for that matter, a male of any color?
Putting race aside (and let’s, as the Duke pit thread on which rapists choose which victims got virulent), I was focused more on the fact that in the more familiar fact pattern, a robber/kidnapper of a young woman is, we tend to assume, probably going to rape her before killing her. But raping the guy? Brutality is brutality, I suppose, but we expect some forms more than others.
You’re certain that had the victims been black the news would have gone into 24/7 coverage?
Recently I’ve seen a lot of conversation, stimulated by the Natalee Holloway case, about the overreporting of white (especially female) crime victims. I’m not specifcally saying I’ve seen news stories on this, mind you – I’m talking about individual people discussing it in my presence. There’s a general feeling among the black folks I’ve talked to that many cases involving the death or disappearance of a perfectly respectable black citizen (not a crackhead or pimp, per se) never make the news. For a while the news media did report a few such cases, and then they sort of dropped off the radar again.
Personally I feel there’s validity to that criticism – I hardly ever see a story one could call “the black Natalee Holloway” in the national news. Overall, isn’t it the case that a lot more violent crime happens to black people…yet we don’t see the 24/7 media frenzy about specific cases, do we?
So I wouldn’t say I knew “to a moral certainty that if the races had been reversed here, national coverage of some sort, probably a 24/7 sort, would have ensued”…since it’s hardly ever happened before, outside of maybe the Duke case and Tawana Brawley…and I distinctly recall a reserve of doubt in the initial stories about Brawley (and said doubt turned out to have been well-founded).
So I’d be kind of surprised if you made the offhand suggestion that it would be a media frenzy. To see you assert it as a moral certainty startles me so much that I’m left speculating about your motives or whether you have an entirely different national news feed.
I think that one of the reasons that the national media didn’t go nuts is because there was no mystery involved. The woman’s body was found in one of the suspects’ homes in a trash can.
Duke lacrosse players allegedly rape black woman… national news.
Tawana Brawley allegedly raped by white man/men… national news.
Black churches burned in the south… national news.
On the other hand you’ve got:
Black group rapes/mutilates/kills white couple… not news.
Black gang beats down two white girls on Halloween… not news.
Black man opens fire on white people in Pittsburg… not news.
I mean nothing’s certain… but if you reversed the colors here, you really don’t think this would be on TV 24/7?
It sounds like you’re saying all this talk about the “liberal elite” is propoganda designed to get working class whites to vote against their own interests.
Interesting theory. But surely the people who’re always complaining about the “liberal elite” couldn’t be that cunning, could they?
