Can This Reddit Lie Be Stopped?

Where's the ADL?

Paul, as a journalist, perhaps you can answer this. My question is this: why are all crimes where the victim is black and the perpetrator white (or in Zimmerman's case, close enough to white to fit) national news, but when the victim is white or black and the perpetrator(s) black, it's just another crime?

There have been at least 3 such incidents recently in New Haven which were reported locally to little fanfare. The Dubey trial (which is similar, factually, as Zimmermans, but with the "races" reversed), the guy getting his scooter stolen, and the SCSU student being robbed on the bike trail as the perpetrators yelled "run, white boy, run". Little mention of race being a motivational or even incidental factor.

Additionally, 2 years ago when this city experienced a near record homicide rate, almost all of the victims were poor black men with a similar demographic as the alleged shooters. Again, not national news. Same as Chicago and every other urban area.

Seems kind of hypocritical on the part of the media to me.

I had a couple of Facebook friends who posted this picture with no context. I linked the current article "Can This Reddit Lie Be Stopped?" and let them know this is not related to anything with the Zimmerman case. I informed them this is normal everyday behavior in New Haven.

The media does more than it's share of hyping up the races when it comes to these stories. Imagine what would happen if a story did not include the race of either the victim or the perpertrator? By golly then it would just be.... NEWS! I know its a long shot, but if we, the people did not feed into the garbage that is recklessly thrown about by numerous media outlets, some of this controversy would not be.

Actually, Paul, if you look back to the thread on Reddit you linked, you'll see that the community has downvoted it to Hell. They're calling OP (original poster) "uninformed" and "stirring up shit". Your thesis is incorrect.

Maybe the problem is that the Independent ran a sensational but non-informative photo. Did you think about its news value, what it communicates or its impact on the individual portrayed? Did you get the victim's permission - someone in obvious distress? - before forcing him live with the consequences of the image?

Just because there is no photojournalist at the Independent doesn't mean you can ignore the ethics of photojournalism.

Same thing with the recent photo of a suicide scene. Did you think about what it would mean for her family to have that picture on the internet?

[Editor: Thank you for the feedback. At hte suicide scene we made a point of not depicting the victim in a way she could be recognized, but rather focused on the scene that was occurring in a very public place.]

VC Man

The NHI is no different from the national news media that suppresses information that does not fir their narrative. I have posted several comments based on factual information in various articles concerning black on white crime and they never appear in the comment section here. I have even pointed out the racism in some of the other comments yet because one particular brand of racism fits the progressive narrative these types of comments are never deleted.

While I agree with the gist of this piece, the Reddit story is not a "lie". I think in common parlance a person lies when he or she says something knowing that it is untrue or when he or she should have known the statement was untrue. As the article notes, no one at this point knows who the attackers were or anything about their motive(s). In light of this ignorance, it is irresponsible (as well as uninformed) to suggest the NH attack has anything to do with the Martin case, but this is not a lie.

Kimwim,

I'm not shocked the reddit community downvoted the story and called out the lie. They are generally responsible and hold each other accountable. It would be nice if we could vote on comments and see a user's history here on NHI. Paul, you could do a follow-up explaining how reddit works and why fake stories generally don't fly.