National Media's Refusal to Cover White Couple's Murder Suggests PC at Work

NewsBusters ^ | Matthew Sheffield

[RatherBiased.com]

The sudden force that the liberal press brought to bear on the falsely accused Duke lacrosse team has been curiously absent on a much more grisly crime committed against a white couple by a group of black youths.

Personally, I don't think that local crime issues should ever be covered in the national press but if the media are going to cover them, they need to be consistent. My friend La Shawn Barber has a must-read post on the matter:

Early this year, a white couple was carjacked, tortured, raped, and murdered by a group of black thugs. Christopher Newsom (23) was gang-raped, shot and set on fire. There are unconfirmed reports that the killers cut off his penis while he was still alive. The going-to-straight-to-hell murderers made Channon Christian (21) watch, and then they gang-raped her over four days and left her to die. There are unconfirmed reports that her breasts were cut off while she was still alive. (Also see this story and the Wikipedia entry)

I’ve been getting e-mail about this case since it happened, but I’ve been hesitant to blog about it. Flopping Aces

published a big post about the case last night, which probably accounts for why I received a few more Christian-Newsom e-mails this morning. Here goes!

I’ve noticed that mainstream media are reluctant to report this story, especially when it first happened. In light of the blanket coverage the Duke “rape” case received, the paucity of coverage in this case seems a bit unbalanced. I mean, isn’t the brutal, black-on-white gang-rape, mutilation, and murder of two people more than or at least as newsworthy as a white-on-black gang-rape (which obviously was phony)? Even if the stripper’s allegations had been true, why was the Duke case burning up the airwaves while the Christian-Newsom case barely emits a spark?

What’s up with the lack of blanket media coverage? I’m not talking about a story here or there with case updates. The media should be swarming around this story. What happened to Christian and Newsom should be all over the airwaves and printing presses.

Read the rest.

Update 10:10. La Shawn's theory is interesting and seems true to me to a certain extent. However the media's coverage of race is tough to characterize because the same national press that is refusing to cover this story is also the same media that obssesses over missing white women to the exclusion of women of any other race. It also seems true that the press is more likely to show pictures of criminals if they are black than if they're white.

What to make of all this? My preliminary theory is that the media at both the local and national levels is more interested in the white audience than the black one. That makes sense from an economics point of view considering there are more whites than blacks in America. Accordingly, the media are more likely to tailor news coverage to white viewers. This explains why you continue to see "news" stories about cold cases such as Natalee Holloway or JonBenet Ramsey and are more likely to see pictorial coverage of black criminals than white ones.

Things change at the national level, however, because there is an added component--political correctness. The national press is more liberal than most local media outlets. In the guilty liberal worldview, it's wrong to promote stories about minority criminality. This explains why the Duke "rape" case was so extensively covered and the lacrosse team not afforded any presumption of innocence and why stories of black hate crimes are underreported. The same thing happens often in coverage of crimes committed by Islamic young people being blamed on "youths" that Charles Johnson is so adept at pointing out.

[JLGALT]

The other day I read FBI statistics that said “although black males represent only 6.5% of the population they represent 70% of the shootings”!

[Plains Drifter]

Part of the grizzly revolting details of this crime with pictures of the suspects and victims can be found under the crime section on Snopes.com. I read the details of this car jacking in Knoxville, Tennessee and it’s not for the weak of stomach.

[3AngelaD]

Don’t you know that it’s not a race crime if the victims are white?

[RatherBiased.com]

Absolutely. However, considering how gruesome the story is, it’s the perfect sensational bit for Nancy Grace and friends.

Yet, the media aren’t talking about it.

[3AngelaD]

From another report, and Poynter is supposed to be setting the standards for journalism:

"Kelly McBride, ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute -- a school for journalists in St. Petersburg, Fla. -- told Cybercast News Service on Monday that just because a crime involves black perpetrators and white victims "doesn't mean it's a hate crime. You have to have specific evidence, such as some sort of racial epithet," which was the case in the Byrd murder.

The Knoxville double homicide "sounds like a horrible, heinous crime, but horrible, heinous crimes are not the standard for what become national stories," she said.

One reason the networks haven't run this story "is because they can't fit it into a narrative of anything other than shock and horror, and you can find that in any crime story anywhere."..."

[MeanWestTexan]

Snopes:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/newsom.asp

Good account, but typical snopes pandering to liberalism. (I’ve disliked snopes ever since they set out to lie for Jon Carey.)

[Plains Drifter]

It’s like they say, if it happens to a white it ain’t a crime.

I’ve emailed this story to Fox News and Glenn Beck and I thank God every day for the internet because we can keep these stories out there. Does anyone remember the Kansas City massacre about 15 years ago?

[sgtbono2002]

Lets not forget the weak sentences handed out to the people who beat those white girls in California.

Now they want to make it a hate crime to call a Spade a Spade. Free Speech is being stifled by a proposed hate crime bill now before Congress.

[Badeye]

“The other day I read FBI statistics that said “although black males represent only 6.5% of the population they represent 70% of the shootings”!”

And its been that way for the past two decades, despite drops in overall crime rates.

Its why Jesse Jackson is famously ‘relieved’ when a gang of youths coming up behind him are white, rather than black.

[MANO]

I hope this gets the attention that it deserves.

[I still care]

I will play a touch of the devil’s advocate here in that I have noticed that really grisly, horrifying murders do get slightly less coverage, unless it’s a serial killer.

The press tends to like sexual murders or murders that involve a betrayal or disappearance. They like the mystery and sexual titillation. If they victim is pretty, cute, or a child. Simple strangulations with maybe one horrifying detail.

The really gross ones do not get covered in detail, it’s almost like people watch them for entertainment, but they don’t want to be too grossed out.

After making this argument I will agree that the press protects minority killers.

[Plains Drifter]

Partner, I’ve never been to Snopes before I heard about this story. I just wanted to check the sources and the validity before I started emailing and calling my friends because I knew the MSM would do its best to ignore the story. I got my original information from the internet and thanks for posting their website.

[LWalk18]

I think that comparing this case to the Duke case is a faulty analogy- with Duke, you had attactive students at top university accused of a crime. There was also an element of mystery- did the crime occur or not? Once it was obvious that no rape had occurred, you have the issue of judicial conduct.

Here, there is absolutely no question that this brutal attack, rape and murder occurred. To me this case compares to what happened in Jasper, TX or the Matthew Shepard case, both of which got plenty of national media while this case has not.

[Gil4]

I hate to be the one throwing cold water, but the accused in this case are not members of an athletic team for a major university.

We heard about the Duke lacrosse team case because of the connection to the Duke athletic program. If it was about a few high school drop-outs, we probably wouldn’t have heard about it. (The race element certainly give it more legs.)

When a couple of basketball players from UConn stole some laptops, we heard about it. When Marcus Vick was in and out of trouble, we heard about it.

I suppose the mainstream media might have reported this story if the races of those involved were all reversed, but I don’t know that for sure.

Comparing this to the Duke case is apples to oranges. You may have a case to make, but the Duke comparison doesn’t help it.

[CeasarsGhost]

Whatever stories tend to rip the fabric of society apart the most, (pitting whites against blacks, women against men and homosexual perverts against normal people are their favorites), are the ones that the media wallow in. The leftist media love to stir the racial pot, but must also cover up many black crimes to prevent blacks from claiming that they cover black crime unevenly, thereby showing the media are not PC. Glossing over islamic terrorist acts in America, (by largely ignoring references to the perpetrator's religious beliefs), simply indicates political correctness and cowardice. (The most recent such terror act was the slaughter at Virginia Tech, where the killer found it necessary to display "Ismail ax" on his arm and elsewhere). The coverage of missing white women seems to hold the female population rapt and sells lots of commercial time.

To sum up, the media will saturate the public with whatever disturbs the collective soul, but will temper relevent facts that would tend to make them appear 'intolerant' and un-pc. Keep in mind that 'tolerance' and 'political correctness' are two things that help destroy society, so the leftists must march to their own drumbeat like the promenading pimps they are.

[Osage Orange]

There was a horrible black on white multiple murder case in Wichita, KS...a few years back.

Hardly a peep out of the DBM/MSM clymers........

[MeanWestTexan]

Oh, I know you weren’t endorsing Snopes -— I just hunted down the link for the same reason you did.

Snopes is generally OK, but they always throw in liberal pandering B.S. into their articles.

[Brilliant]

Blacks murdering whites is not news.

[CeasarsGhost]

"I hate to be the one throwing cold water, but the accused in this case are not members of an athletic team for a major university."

I must disagree; who the heck even knows what lacrosse is, much less follows it? The greatest lacrosse player who ever lived is.....is....is...., I don't know, or care.

The fact is that the alleged perps were successful white males, and that's why the media needed wallow in the non-story. There's nothing like successful white males abusing a 'person of color' to help perpetuate the so-called 'racial divide' and rip the fabric of our society apart. That's the media's primary job in this age, to tear apart traditional, peaceful America and raise up a repulsive caricature in its stead.

[68skylark]

One reason the networks haven't run this story "is because they can't fit it into a narrative of anything other than shock and horror, and you can find that in any crime story anywhere."

I agree. The press has a pretty specific narrative: American sucks, especially in the way it treats blacks, gays and women. Anything that fits the narrative gets publicized. Anything that doesn't fit the narrative gets buried.

[Disambiguator]

Another story that never really saw the light of day was about a 13 year-old boy that was raped to death by two homosexuals. Jesse Dirkhising was his name, I believe.

PC rules the press, to be sure, and they’re not doing the general public a service by spiking these stories. If anything, they will help other innocents get killed.

[azhenfud]

Racism only runs one way. I penned this objection to the article found at the link - to no avail.

It is appalling to see such blatant hatred for persons based upon race as one Soloman Burnette has exhibited in his piece posted at: http://www.nccu.edu/campus/echo/o-burnette.html and even more disgusting any form of academic institution would poise itself as a medium to pedestal such intolerance and indigence of learning.

For example, Burnette displays his profound lack of intelligence and his deep-seated caustic prejudice by the statement:

“White people still murder us with impunity.”

Yet data from FBI’s own reporting website says for 2005:

Data from single victim/single offender incidents showed that 92.6 percent of black victims were murdered by black offenders, and 84.8 percent of white victims were murdered by white offenders. (Based on Expanded Homicide Data Table 5.)

---

According to the FBI figures, it is persons of other races contributing to a greater percentage of murders to the White population while Blacks murder more of their own. Burnette is nothing short of an ignorant, racist bigot whose factually-devoid writings have no place near any taxpayer supported institution of academia.

NCCU ought to be ashamed and persons outraged it allows its name associated with such hateful, misled characters - disclaimer or not.

I’ve so duly noted Burkette has been, in fact, a frequent personal contributor to FBI violent crime statistics. How odd he should consider himself a qualified spokesperson against crime committed by any other racial group.

---

Councilwoman’s son, 18, accused of hitting mom
Burnette allegedly punched his mother in her face, head
Herald-Sun, The (Durham, NC)
February 24, 1998
Author: PAUL BONNER The Herald-Sun
City Councilwoman Brenda Burnette’s son was arrested Friday for allegedly punching his mother in the face.
Solomon Burnette, 18, already faces armed-robbery charges filed in December by Duke University police. He was returned early Saturday to Durham County Jail, where he spent five days before Christmas on the earlier charges before a family friend posted bond.

His $400 bond on the new charge, a misdemeanor count of assault on a woman, is a fraction of the earlier $10,000 bond. Yet Burnette spent the weekend in jail and made a first court appearance on the charge Monday, after which he was returned to jail.

Brenda Burnette declined to discuss the incident, and few details were available elsewhere. According to a citation filed by Durham police, Solomon Burnette hit his mother on the face and head.

(snip)

Hughes also represents Solomon Burnette on charges he robbed two Duke students at gunpoint near Markham Avenue and Berkeley Street on Nov. 30. The students identified Burnette from a photograph as one of two robbers — mistakenly, Brenda Burnette has maintained. She has stood by her son’s innocence on those charges, while saying that ``something needed to happen to get his attention’’ about other questionable conduct.

Before his troubles began — and before his mother was elected in November to the council — Solomon Burnette’s media exposure was as a gifted student whose science-fair project was highlighted in a conference in Washington, D.C.

//

Councilwoman’s son violates probation terms
Herald-Sun, The (Durham, NC)
March 14, 2000
Author: JOHN STEVENSON The Herald-Sun

City Councilwoman Brenda Burnette’s son admitted in court Monday that he had violated probation by testing positive for marijuana, disregarding curfews and failing to pay fines.
Solomon Burnette, 20, was sentenced to between 12 and 15 months in prison after he admitted the violations to Superior Court Judge Ron Stephens.

Burnette had been on probation for robbery and marijuana convictions.

---

NCCU’s continued association with and failure to take action against this individual will and should, by many, be considered nothing less than an endorsement of his attitude and a condonement of racial violence and intolerance.

[LWalk18]

must disagree; who the heck even knows what lacrosse is, much less follows it?

They were just lacrosse players, but they played for Duke, who has a well known basketball team and is one of the top universities in the country. If this had happened at Podunk State, you wouldn't have heard about it beyond local news.

[Nea Wood]

This explains why you continue to see "news" stories about cold cases such as Natalee Holloway or JonBenet Ramsey...

In those cases, I think beauty was the factor more than race. A story is always more "interesting" to the public if the victim is beautiful.

[Dante3]

A horrific crime. MSM even refused to give much attention to the Wichita Massacre by those two subhumans, the brothers Reginald and Jonathan Carr while going into a frenzy over much less gruesome crimes.

[FortWorthPatriot]

"Snopes is generally OK, but they always throw in liberal pandering B.S. into their articles."

Did you notice how they attempted to explain away why this story didn't receive any national coverage?

It sickens me that I have not heard of this incident. This should have made national headlines IMHO.

[George W. Bush]

The sudden force that the liberal press brought to bear on the falsely accused Duke lacrosse team has been curiously absent on a much more grisly crime committed against a white couple by a group of black youths.

Apparently, if you're white, you pass directly from infancy to maturity. Why don't white guys ever get to be "yout's" anyway?

However the media's coverage of race is tough to characterize because the same national press that is refusing to cover this story is also the same media that obssesses over missing white women to the exclusion of women of any other race.

Mostly if it means Greta & Friends get to live in Aruba for the duration. Or if it involves the murder of a pregnant pretty blond woman by her husband (who is a man), inexplicable given the media's overwhelming defense of the female parent's right to abort offspring on the basis of her feelings about it.

---

The lack of coverage in the grisly rape-murder-torture in this case is reminiscent of the media orgy over Matthew Shepherd while it steadfastly avoided any mention of Jesse Dirkhising. There was outright conspiracy by media outlets to downplay the Dirkhising murder.

Jesse Dirkhising - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
WorldNetDaily: The tragic story of Jesse Dirkhising

[live+let_live]

Dog bites man = not news

Man bites dog = news

So the question is this: Is this crime an unusual occurance?

If yes, it should be covered. If no, it won’t be.

[CeasarsGhost]

"If this had happened at Podunk State, you wouldn't have heard about it beyond local news."

This may or may not be true. But I stand by what I said originally, that these guys were successful white males who allegedly abused a 'downtrodden black', and that was the reason for the media saturation. The fact that they attended Duke gave the media the proof they needed that the guys were indeed successful young men from successful white families. There is nothing the leftist media enjoys more than helping to perpetuate female 'empowerment', racial tension and economic divisions, and this story had all three of their favorite divisive elements. The only thing missing from the story being a media Grand Slam was that the alleged 'victim' wasn't a lesbian.

[CeasarsGhost]

"So the question is this: Is this crime an unusual occurance? If yes, it should be covered. If no, it won’t be."

So, a drug addicted, mentally disturbed professional STRIPPER who gets sexually abused is "man-bites-dog" news?

[synbad600]

What about blacks murdering blacks? Where’s the “rev” when that happens?

[Major Matt Mason]

One reason the networks haven't run this story "is because they can't fit it into a narrative of anything other than shock and horror, and you can find that in any crime story anywhere."..."

Excuses, excuses. No wonder the media is in a freefall - they deserve their eventual demise.

[live+let_live]

Since in our current climate, freedom of speech doesn’t cover all issues, I felt the need to comment in code.

I realise not all people will understand.

[RonF]

I must disagree; who the heck even knows what lacrosse is, much less follows it?

Lots of people. Lacrosse at the high school level has been the fastest growing sport over the last 3 years. My son played for his high school and now plays for his university. Sports Illustrated did a story on it last year about how it's growing by leaps and bounds nationally. The kids like it because it combines running, hand-eye coordination and contact. Additionally, a variety of body types can play it; even the kid who can't run very fast can play goalie if he's got good reactions and eye-hand coordination.

The kids also like it, according to SI, because their parents don't know the rules and thus can't sit on the sidelines and yell at the refs and the coaches. Seriously.

The State of Illinois only had a handful of teams a few years ago. Now they've got over 60 boys teams and over 20 girls teams and the IHSA is going to start up an official state championship.

Plus, it was invented in the U.S. by Native Americans - it's an all-American game. The French name (la crosse, "the stick") comes from the Indians teaching it to the French fur trappers and traders who first penetrated into the wilderness of Canada and America.

[CeasarsGhost]

"Lacrosse at the high school level has been the fastest growing sport over the last 3 years"

Wow. So this makes college lacrosse players national icons? The Duke lacrosse players were singled out by the media because they were WHITE, AFFLUENT and SUCCESSFUL, not because they were lacrosse players.

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[PghBaldy]

Compare the coverage of this then to James Byrd or Matthew Shepherd. The Duke case was covered the way it was cause the accused were white. It was treated like a morality tale on America.

[Teacher317]

That was the Wichita Massacre, and it was in 2000.

http://www.wichita-massacre.com/

[gcruse]

"The press tends to like sexual murders or murders"

Then why did they ignore this one?

'Wichita Horror' trial to begin

[George W. Bush]

The kids also like it, according to SI, because their parents don't know the rules and thus can't sit on the sidelines and yell at the refs and the coaches. Seriously.

Seriously, I believe it. The schools should expel poorly behaving parents for the season at the first infraction. It's the fault of school officials and coaches that this situation continues to embarrass student athletes after decades of it.

Just let the kids have some fun and play a good game. Hardly any are going to get scholarships or a pro career anyway. Why let parents ruin it?

[George W. Bush]

This story, however horrible, is NOTHING compared to the Wichita Massacre- another non-reported story:

http://www.newnation.org/NNN-wichita.html
http://library.flawlesslogic.com/wichita_2.htm

Big, big bump.

Another story hardly anyone can find out about. What use is a free press that decides, for reasons of liberal ideology, that the public isn't capable of handling the truth?

Such selective journalism has undermined the primary justification for its own unfettered freedom of the press.

Print the news. Print all of it. Without racial filters.

[Plains Drifter]

THANKS FOR THE INFO.

[Diplomat]

It also seems true that the press is more likely to show pictures of criminals if they are black than if they're white.

This explains why you continue to see "news" stories about cold cases such as Natalee Holloway or JonBenet Ramsey and are more likely to see pictorial coverage of black criminals than white ones.

First off, while I agree the preferred TV victim is a pretty white female, the preferred perp is and always will be a white male. The suggestion that blacks (per capita) are more likely to have their pictures shown is not true. It may be true on distinct numbers, but black men drawf all other races for being violent criminals. Thus it may be true on pure raw numbers, but that is not a real measurement of the bias, and this article disguises that fact.

Where are the black examples of David Westerfield, Peterson, and the others that had their mugs shown over and over again on TV? Contrast this with the "beltway snipers". Remember the obsession the media had with this case and stupid Moose Johnson on TV swearing that it was the work of whites, because we are allowed to profile them and even IGNORE obivous and blantant in-your-face evidence as long as we continue searching for a white perpetrator.

Now I ask, how many of us could pick the belt-way snipers out of a line-up? Could we pick out Westerfield, Peterson (name may be wrong, but I'll never forget his face) or Megan's law killer out of a lineup?

[Plains Drifter]

Bump

[Calvin Locke]

Kansas City Massacre? The one where the black navy seaman started shooting whites in a hotel, a Holiday Inn? That was on the order of 40 years ago.

[READINABLUESTATE]

Never heard of this story before now bump.

The MSM is keeping this one really quiet.

[Plains Drifter]

No, it was the 2 black males and 5 whites 2 men,3 women on Christmas Eve.