Aussie College Baseball Playa Killed By Bored Teens In Ok Narrative

YankeeFan · Aug 24, 2013

Re: Austrialian College Baseball Player Killed By Bored Teens In Oka

Put aside the cable tv shout fests.

Will Jonathan Capehart tell us about the burdens of being a black, and a member of the LGBT community?

One of the burdens of being a black male is carrying the heavy weight of other people’s suspicions.
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How about President Obama? Will he ask us how we can prevent future tragedies like this?

“We should ask ourselves, as individuals and as a society, how we can prevent future tragedies like this
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2013/07/15/trayvon-martin-and-the-stolen-youth-of-black-children/

And, let's be honest, a gay male or transgendered woman is at much greater risk to be a victim of random violence than a young black male walking home from a skittles run. And, if they are African-American, they are at greater risk, and the threat comes from fellow African-Americans.

Lets see some some national columnists like Capehart -- who is openly gay, and could certainly address this issue -- tackle this topic.

YankeeFan · Aug 24, 2013

Re: Austrialian College Baseball Player Killed By Bored Teens In Oka

In May, a gay black man was murdered in NYC by a Hispanic man:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/nyregion/killing-in-greenwich-village-looks-like-hate-crime-police-say.html?_r=0

Hate crimes against homosexuals in NYC are up 77% -- before the latest attack -- but, there's no national outcry.

New York city is supposed to be more tolerant, more diverse than the Bible Belt, but these hate crimes get no attention.

But, the killers aren't white, and this isn't Wyoming, so there's no easy template for the media to follow.

Boom_70 · Aug 24, 2013

Re: Austrialian College Baseball Player Killed By Bored Teens In Oka

YankeeFan said:

Put aside the cable tv shout fests.

Will Jonathan Capehart tell us about the burdens of being a black, and a member of the LGBT community?

One of the burdens of being a black male is carrying the heavy weight of other people’s suspicions.
Click to expand...

How about President Obama? Will he ask us how we can prevent future tragedies like this?

“We should ask ourselves, as individuals and as a society, how we can prevent future tragedies like this
Click to expand...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2013/07/15/trayvon-martin-and-the-stolen-youth-of-black-children/

And, let's be honest, a gay male or transgendered woman is at much greater risk to be a victim of random violence than a young black male walking home from a skittles run. And, if they are African-American, they are at greater risk, and the threat comes from fellow African-Americans.

Lets see some some national columnists like Capehart -- who is openly gay, and could certainly address this issue -- tackle this topic.
Click to expand...

Chris Christie ties Capeheart up in knots on Morning Joe segment.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/02/23/chris-christie-smacks-down-wapos-capehart-i-m-not-going-be-cross-exam

Dick Whitman · Aug 24, 2013

Re: Austrialian College Baseball Player Killed By Bored Teens In Oka

Which publications or columnists, specifically, do not cop to their biases? The NYT op-ed page does, right? And FOX doesn't promote itself as biased, by the way, it promotes itself as "fair and balanced." I bet most of its viewers would claim it is centrist.

old_tony · Aug 25, 2013

Re: Austrialian College Baseball Player Killed By Bored Teens In Oka

Dick Whitman said:

Which publications or columnists, specifically, do not cop to their biases? The NYT op-ed page does, right? And FOX doesn't promote itself as biased, by the way, it promotes itself as "fair and balanced." I bet most of its viewers would claim it is centrist.
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Fox News is a little too far left for me.

Just kidding. 8)

heyabbott · Aug 25, 2013

Re: Austrialian College Baseball Player Killed By Bored Teens In Oka

Dick Whitman said:

Which publications or columnists, specifically, do not cop to their biases? The NYT op-ed page does, right? And FOX doesn't promote itself as biased, by the way, it promotes itself as "fair and balanced." I bet most of its viewers would claim it is centrist.
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Mao thought Stalin was a centrist

BenPoquette · Aug 26, 2013

Re: Austrialian College Baseball Player Killed By Bored Teens In Oka

Dick Whitman said:

YankeeFan said:

MisterCreosote said:

YankeeFan said:

I understand that your email must be nauseating. When a white person is murdered by a black person, it's going to bring out the racists.

And, I think the very fact that so many of you in the media are sickened by that response is why many of you want to avoid the issue all together if you can.

But, that's not a good enough reason. And, when you pretend race doesn't matter, you play right into the hands of racists who want to make it about race.
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Before we even get to the fact that you're telling me, PC and others that, essentially, we're bad at our jobs, I just want to be clear that your argument is "People care that a black person shot a white person more than they'd care if a group of teenagers of unknown race started randomly killing people for no other reason than boredom."

Again, people without a racist or race-baiting agenda will see the act itself as "concerning" or newsworthy, not who did it (unless it's a friend, family member, etc.).

I've covered more murders than I care to remember, and they involved all races. Black people murdering white people, or vice versa, is no more or less tragic than any other, unless empty-suit politicians or other people with race-driven agendas say so.
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Yes, all murders are tragic. And, I'm not saying you are "bad" at your job. That you all look at this the same way is evidence to me that the "media" is driven by "group think" far more than Dick would like to admit.

I don't think there's any reason to focus needlessly on race in news coverage. I also don't think the media should shy away from it.

Anyone with a "nose for news" know that the racial makeup of the folks involved in an incident can lead to a case receiving more attention

The Trayvon Martin case showed this. If he and Zimmerman had been the same race, the case would not have been the media sensation it became.

Going back to my youth, the Tawana Brawley case would not have been as sensational if she hadn't accused a group of white men of kidnapping and raping her, and the Bernie Goetz case would not have been the same if he had been black, or if the youths he shot had been white.

All of this is true, and indisputable. And, whether the flames of these cases are fanned by race-baiters is irrelevant.

We were told that part of why the Trayvon Martin case received so much attention was because it was "every mother's worst fear." The thought that your child would be unsafe returning from the store, and might be stalked and gunned down by a stranger, purely for the color of his skin was what made it so scary, and so shocking.

Well, in that regard, there are potential parallels between the Martin case and this one. Chris Lane was just out for a jog, and he was gunned down. He didn't do anything wrong. There wasn't even any kind of confrontation.

Reporters covering the case would surely know that the race of the killer(s), and possibly their motivation, had the potential to draw a lot of attention to this case.

And, they either were not curious enough about the race of those in custody to ask, or they were unable to get the information, or they didn't think it was worth telling their consumers.

Why?

If it was because they didn't want to fuel racist "mouth breathers" then they are attempting to manage the news, and that's a function for someone in PR, not the media.
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Woah, woah, woah.

Of course they were managing the news. We all manage the news. Part of a reporter's job is to cull relevant facts from irrelevant facts to fit that day's news hole. Now, you may not like how they culled the facts here, and which ones they selected and did not select. But you can't indict the process of managing the news, generally. It's what reporters, by necessity and by definition, do.

Again, and I'm going to keep beating this drum, it took 11 days and a lawsuit/press conference for a mention 15 inches into a story about Trayvon Martin of the race of perpetrator and victim, which was then dismissed as a factor four or five inches later. The main focus, at that point, was the age disparity of the two involved parties, the nature of neighborhood watches, and the externalities of Stand Your Ground laws. Then black bloggers started stirring up the race angle, and the rest of the media had to follow suit at that point. It very much followed the Gosnell/Steubenville pattern. It was activist-driven. And the activists, at least at first, were not in the mainstream press reporting the story. If and when the Lane story reaches critical mass - it may not, because the arrests have been made - race's prominent position in the reporting will be activist-driven, too.

Also, YF makes fun of the "every parent's worst nightmare" angle, but I don't understand why it is so offensive that race would come up in the Martin case. He was not, certainly, a poster boy for the cause, but black people do get targeted for suspicion in this country more than white people. And particularly black teen-agers. And particularly black teen-age boys. For good reason, it could be argued. But it sucks for the ones not doing anything wrong, like Martin.

Now, I have conceded that the racial angle needs to be explored in the Lane killing. I don't think YF and I are too far apart. We're arguing about angels on the head of a pin, like Dooley likes to accuse me of. Ultimately, I don't think he's crazy to suggest that, in light of the Zimmerman case, there should have been a delicate way to ask if race might have been a motive. Then you write, "Although the three suspects were black and Lane is white, police said there is no indication that the crime was racially motivated." I get it: "Boredom" does not pass the smell test, in YF's estimation, as a real motive.

Now, YF cares about media motivations more than I do, though. I don't know that reporters are looking to push a narrative or keep from stirring up mouth-breathers, though, so much as they are extremely, extremely uncomfortable talking about race at all.
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Dick, please give me a link to one story focusing on the age disparity between Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman. One link discussing this as newsworthy. One where it is mentioned as a factor at all (not that their ages are mentioned...nothing that says "Martin, 17, was killed by George Zimmerman, 28, while walking home." I want to see something discussing this as important to the overall investigation.

Dick Whitman · Aug 26, 2013

Re: Austrialian College Baseball Player Killed By Bored Teens In Oka

BenPoquette said:

Dick, please give me a link to one story focusing on the age disparity between Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman. One link discussing this as newsworthy. One where it is mentioned as a factor at all (not that their ages are mentioned...nothing that says "Martin, 17, was killed by George Zimmerman, 28, while walking home." I want to see something discussing this as important to the overall investigation.
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Ben, it was central to the entire reaction to the incident, that Martin was a teen-ager and Zimmerman was an adult neighborhood watch volunteer. One of the chief complaints I've heard from conservatives is that the media tried to emphasize this disparity even more by using older, younger-looking photos of Martin.

I can't fathom how you could possibly think that the age disparity was not a component of the coverage.

Boom_70 · Aug 26, 2013

Re: Austrialian College Baseball Player Killed By Bored Teens In Oka

"Skittles"

BTExpress · Aug 26, 2013

Re: Austrialian College Baseball Player Killed By Bored Teens In Oka

One of the chief complaints I've heard from conservatives is that the media tried to emphasize this disparity even more by using older, younger-looking photos of Martin.
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I'm not so sure that it's "age disparity" at play as much as trying to find "innocent kid"-looking photos ("He was just an innocent kid!"). Zimmerman could have been 22, and they would have still played that angle. Look for the "innocent kid" photo of the victim to make it appear as though he could not have done anything to make the shooter feel threatened.

Inky_Wretch · Aug 26, 2013

Re: Austrialian College Baseball Player Killed By Bored Teens In Oka

BTExpress said:

One of the chief complaints I've heard from conservatives is that the media tried to emphasize this disparity even more by using older, younger-looking photos of Martin.
Click to expand...

I'm not so sure that it's "age disparity" at play as much as trying to find "innocent kid"-looking photos ("He was just an innocent kid!"). Zimmerman could have been 22, and they would have still played that angle. Look for the "innocent kid" photo of the victim to make it appear as though he could not have done anything to make the shooter feel threatened.
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The photos were provided by the family. Was the media supposed to say "Look, we know you're grieving but we need a photo of him from the past week" to the parents?

LongTimeListener · Aug 26, 2013

Re: Austrialian College Baseball Player Killed By Bored Teens In Oka

That's a bullshit and fake criticism anyway. The photo that drew the most complaints was from within six months of Martin's death.

It's a wingnut myth.

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