Politicizing the News: The Press Shuns Covering Gay or Black Crimes

John Leo, in an important article,  The Politics of News, comments on the murders of Channon Christian, 21, and Christopher Newsom, 23 in Knoxville on January 6th. You probably haven't heard of this case because it failed to receive widespread coverage.  Christian and Newsom were carjacked, kidnapped, raped, tortured, sexually mutilated, and killed.  The suspects in the case are five black men. 

John Leo reminds us also of another double standard crime story:  the 1999 death of Jesse Dirkhising, a 13-year-old Arkansas boy who was drugged, tied to a bed, raped, tortured, and killed by two homosexual men. 

The big-time press was exasperated by complaints that, unlike the Matthew Shepard story, the murder of the Dirkhising boy virtually had no coverage outside of Arkansas . . .   The Shepard story was news in a way that the Dirkhising story wasn't because it "prompted debate on hate crimes and the degree to which there is still intolerance of gay people in this country," according to a Washington Post editor. This comes pretty close to advocacy. Hate-crime legislation was in some trouble at the time, and gays were fighting to get included under existing laws. . .    If Jesse Dirkhising had been a gay youngster tortured and killed by straight men, the story would have gone national in a heartbeat.

Now the press is making the Dirkhising mistake again in the Knoxville case. It may have the same result: the story will spread anyway thanks to the Internet. Before the press start up again about "angry white males," let's notice that the blogger assault on the press's failure in the Knoxville case is being led by Michelle Malkin, who is Asian-American, and LaShawn Barber, who is black.

Before long, more news consumers will conclude that even crime news is in effect being politicized. Is this any way to protect an industry in trouble?

See Michelle Malkin for more, including her 2001 article on the Jesse Dirkhising case.