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When Child Sex Abuse Isn't News
Townhall.com ^ | September 5, 2014 | Brent Bozell

Posted on 09/05/2014 6:46:41 AM PDT by Kaslin

Five years ago, Pope Benedict arrived in London to erupting controversy. Around 10,000 people took to the capital's streets for a rally against the Holy Father's "intolerance," and as the Guardian reported, against "the child abuse scandal for which so many hold the pontiff personally responsible, for both accelerating it and then covering it up."

The abuse in question centered for the most part on incidents that were 40 years old or more.

Nevertheless, CBS reporter Mark Phillips described the trip as "A test of whether Pope Benedict can get his message across over the background noise of the Church's child abuse scandal. And that test gets harder as time goes on."

The media were pledging to never let up with the noisemaking.

Today the United Kingdom is ablaze with the official discovery that in the northern English town of Rotherham, at least 1,400 children, some as young as 11, were groomed for sexual exploitation and rape (even gang rape) while the authorities looked the other way -- from 1997 to 2013. The abusers were Pakistanis.

Some would ask (correctly): Where were the police? We would ask: Where are these child-defending networks now?

"The vast majority of perpetrators have been identified as South Asian and most victims were young white girls, adding to the complexity of the case," reported The New York Times. "Some officials appeared to believe that social workers pointing to a pattern of sexual exploitation were exaggerating, while others reportedly worried about being accused of racism if they spoke out."

In America, the same TV networks over the last dozen years have filed hundreds of noise-making stories slamming decades-old allegations of child abuse in the Catholic Church -- suddenly they can't find this story with two hands. There's been nothing on ABC, CBS, NBC or PBS. A Nexis search can't even find any transcripts mentioning the story on CNN or MSNBC, and just one on Fox News. USA Today hasn't found it, and The Washington Post only placed a story online, not in the paper.

Do they only care to report on England's royal children? Do no one else's matter?

The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times discovered the story briefly on August 27, and NPR aired two reports, on August 26 and 27. The New York Times then put it on the front page on September 2. But none of these stories made any mention of Muslims or Islam. These child abusers were not clerics, but their religious heritage was as politically touchy as their ethnicity.

Take the Catholic Church out of it, and child sex scandals aren't particularly scandalous in the eyes of the press.

This echoes the British child sex scandal of 2012, when it was discovered that longtime BBC "Top of the Pops" host Jimmy Savile was convincingly accused of sexually abusing more than 300 women and underage girls, some as young as 12. NBC led the broadcast networks with just four reports, while CBS offered two, PBS had two tiny briefs, and ABC had zilch.

From Oct. 14, 2012, when the story broke in the paper, through Dec. 20, 2012, there were 31 New York Times news stories mentioning the Savile controversy -- only four on the front page. This story was especially embarrassing, since the Times had just hired Savile's former BBC boss Mark Thompson, who claimed to be completely ignorant about his colleague's abuses, and about the spiking of a 2011 BBC news report breaking the Savile scandal.

By comparison, in just over two months in 2010, the Times ran 64 news stories aggressively questioning Pope Benedict's handling of sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church, including in Ireland and California. Thirteen of those landed on the front page.

Shocking stories of child sex abuse are apparently much more newsworthy when they can be used to punish and weaken organizations that secular progressives don't like.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: rotherham; sexualabuse

1 posted on 09/05/2014 6:46:42 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

HAS Michael LeMoyne Kennedy returned from the dead under multiple guises?
“Allegations were reported that the affair had begun three years before, when the babysitter was 14 years old.....”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_LeMoyne_Kennedy
See even the “saintly” Kennedys did it, what’s the big deal?


2 posted on 09/05/2014 7:07:09 AM PDT by BilLies ( it isn't the color of the skin, but culture that is embraced that degrades.)
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To: Kaslin

Bump


3 posted on 09/05/2014 7:08:01 AM PDT by Incorrigible (If I lead, follow me; If I pause, push me; If I retreat, kill me.)
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To: Kaslin
Take the Catholic Church out of it, and child sex scandals aren't particularly scandalous in the eyes of the press.

Ouch!

4 posted on 09/05/2014 7:19:26 AM PDT by onedoug
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To: Kaslin
We would ask: Where are these child-defending networks now?

Self preservation. Those Paki Muslims will kill you. The Christians will pray for you.

5 posted on 09/05/2014 7:21:07 AM PDT by JimRed (Excise the cancer before it kills us; feed & water the Tree of Liberty! TERM LIMITS NOW & FOREVER!)
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To: Kaslin
Take the Catholic Church out of it, and child sex scandals aren't particularly scandalous in the eyes of the press.

That's because they don't, actually, believe there's anything wrong with adults having sex with children.

6 posted on 09/05/2014 7:21:45 AM PDT by Tax-chick (No power in the 'verse can stop me.)
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To: Tax-chick

It’s all about the perverted destruction of church and family. Gay “marriage” is only a step, not the end. Polygamy and pedophilia are next on the list, to be followed by incest, bestiality and necrophilia. The term “marriage” will be so devoid of meaning our grandchildren will be able to “marry” household appliances.

The end game is to deny that we have souls and make us pieces of meat to be disposed of as the state sees fit.


7 posted on 09/05/2014 7:29:46 AM PDT by henkster (Do I really need a sarcasm tag?)
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To: henkster

I don’t find anything in your post with which I disagree, except perhaps the final prediction. As we’ve seen in the WW2 news, just when things look most hopeless, they could be about to turn around.


8 posted on 09/05/2014 7:37:58 AM PDT by Tax-chick (No power in the 'verse can stop me.)
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To: Tax-chick

I see many of the things that happened in Stalin’s Soviet Union replaying here and now. The individual is being destroyed along with all that is good, right and true. Stalin’s subjects were nothing but pieces of meat. His brutal policies of collectivization, industrialization, purges and conduct of the war showed this. We are being stripped of our dignity in a not quite so brutal way, but we are on the way to the same result. In the end, Stalin’s anthill society collapsed because it denied men their rights and dignity.

I see the same sullen indifference growing among the mass of Americans. Yes, these policies can maintain the current power structure. But it also means that when that power structure and state come under stress, no one will lift a finger to fight for them.


9 posted on 09/05/2014 8:02:09 AM PDT by henkster (Do I really need a sarcasm tag?)
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To: JimRed

I’m involved with such networks. My newsfeed over the past several days has been filled with this story.


10 posted on 09/05/2014 8:02:17 AM PDT by pleasedontzotme
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To: Kaslin

Perhaps the common thread here is that both Rotherham, and the BBC scandals, happened in England, not America? That could easily explain why American news media are not devoting round the clock coverage to them.

The British media, as far as I can tell, have devoted plenty of coverage to both of those scandals.


11 posted on 09/05/2014 8:05:49 AM PDT by Boogieman
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To: Kaslin

12 posted on 09/05/2014 8:07:27 AM PDT by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: henkster

Only to those conditioned to believe the state defines marriage. Pope Leo XIII warned about the state redefining marriage at the whim of the civil authorities 130 years ago. Hard to imagine what the state will be calling it’s version of marriage in another 130 years.

FReegards


13 posted on 09/05/2014 8:08:53 AM PDT by Ransomed
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To: Kaslin

“The issue is never the issue. The issue is the revolution.”
—David Horowitz, quoting unnamed SDS leader.


14 posted on 09/05/2014 10:32:04 AM PDT by Slings and Arrows ("Your Daddy Was Drunk and Your Mama Was Lonely" - http://youtu.be/4HYy62qiOwA)
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