CNN transcript:
RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom were in the wrong place at a deadly time. The couple were en route to watch a movie in a friend’s apartment in this complex in January. Knoxville Police believe they were carjacked, kidnapped and taken to this house.
Both were raped repeatedly, 21-year-old Channon, a university student, had cleaning fluid sprayed in her mouth. She apparently suffocated after being stuffed into a trash can inside the house. Christopher Newsom, 23 years old, was shot. His body set on fire and dumped by the railroad traction.
TIM HUTCHISON, FORMER KNOX COUNTY SHERIFF: We don’t know that many details about why this crime occurred.
DORNIN: A fingerprint found in the victim’s car a few days after the murders led to arrests. Three African-American men and one woman were charged with murder in connection with the killings. Another man is charged as an accessory.
But days later the story or a version of it gathered steam on the Web. Sites with white supremacist agendas made their own headlines. It was a hate crime, they claimed, but Knoxville prosecutors say, no way.
JOHN GILL, KNOX COUNTY D.A.’S OFFICE: There’s no evidence of any kind that a hate crime was involved.
DORNIN: That wasn’t enough to convince the bloggers.
(on camera): The national news media, they say, spends plenty of time covering white-on-black crime, but has completely ignored the story here in Knoxville. The story really took off after there were claims that the couple was sexually mutilated.
(voice-over): That new twist may have begun with an extreme right-wing blogger, Hal Turner in New York. He told CNN “sympathetic people” in Knoxville told him back in February that the young man’s genitals and the woman’s breasts had been hacked off. He put those details on his Web site.
HAL TURNER, EXTREMIST INTERNET BLOGGER: I can’t see any motivation other than hate that would prompt someone to do the things to these white kids that were done by these black perpetrators.
DORNIN: Prosecutors insist mutilations never happened.
GILL: A terrible crime is charged regardless of some of these fantastic reports of mutilation and things which aren’t true.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No more savage black crime!
DORNIN: But Turner and others stepped out from behind their computer screens to lead a rally this past weekend in Knoxville attended by white supremacists. A crowd twice as large protested the gathering.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And topping our newscast tonight, the family of...
DORNIN: As the local media in Knoxville followed the story, one reporter told us she has been receiving hate mail, lots of it. Accusations, says News Sentinel reporter Jamie Satterfield, that she covered up details of the crime and questions about why the national media hasn’t picked up on the story.
JAMIE SATTERFIELD, KNOXVILLE NEWS SENTINEL: Initially my response was, you know, don’t hit me with your racism, but what I’ve learned is that just fueled it.
DORNIN: Even while we did our interview, she got mail.
(on camera): How many have you received in the last hour?
SATTERFIELD: It looks like I’ve gotten three.
DORNIN (voice-over): All four defendants have pleaded not guilty. Defense attorneys declined to comment on the case, but agreed with prosecutors that the bloggers had hurt both sides.
GILL: They created a scenario, if true, makes people wonder, well, why wasn’t there more coverage or what’s going on? DORNIN: Channon Christian’s parents attend every court appearance. The couple don’t believe the murders were racially motivated. It’s not so straightforward for the Newsoms, they believe it did not start out as a hate crime but may have ended up that way. Even so, they resent their son’s death being used as a propaganda tool by racist groups.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now I know Chris and Channon would not want to be a part of that. That’s not what they stood for.
DORNIN: All four defendants will be tried separately. The first trial won’t even begin until May of 2008, plenty of time for the myths, virtual and otherwise, to grow.
Rusty Dornin, CNN, Knoxville, Tennessee.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0705/29/pzn.01.html
CNN did cover this story? I am surprised.
As far as the Snopes staff writing that the media do report on black on white crimes by citing OJ Simpson as an example, I think that is a stretch. Simpson was a big time celebrity. And of course he had plenty of defenders. Even some supporters who admitted to the media even if he did it, they didn’t care or were even glad about it.