No media bias here

[Ham Murabi]

MURDER IN BLACK AND WHITE

Channon Christian and Christopher
Newsom (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgvmmyDpzHw) were described by family
and friends as a "clean-cut and faithful couple---good kids." Channon
was a senior at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, where she met
Christopher. She and Chris went out on a Saturday dinner date, after
which Channon called her mom and told her that they were on the way to
visit friends. But Channon and Christopher never arrived at their friends'
house---or returned home.

The next day, the mutilated and burned remains of Chris Newsom were found
along a railroad track. Two days later, Channon's battered and burned body
was recovered from a trash bin. Channon and Chris had been kidnapped after
a carjacking, then brutally gang-raped and murdered. According to reports,
they were subjected to lengthy torture in each other's presence, injected
with chemical disinfectants to destroy DNA evidence, then strangled and shot.

This appalling attack is more than a case study in sociopathic evil. It is
also a case study in journalistic malpractice.

Unless you tune in to the local Knoxville news, you are most likely hearing
about this heinous crime for the first time---even though it took place last
January. True, there are some 17,000 murders committed in the U.S. each year,
but this double murder was clearly far more barbaric, far more monstrous
than most.

I spent six years in law enforcement and have seen my share of war-ravaged
third-world nations, but the deliberate and abject inhumanity of this case,
and what it says about our culture, certainly got my attention. Yet, this
story has failed to attract the attention of the national media.

Could it be because the two victims were white and the five defendants
are black?

Regrettably, there is nothing new about the racial aspect of this
story. Although blacks represent just 12 percent of the U.S. population,
black perpetrators are convicted by their peers in more than half of all
murder and manslaughter cases. And, per-capita black-on-white crime is far
more prevalent than the inverse.

The underlying social factors contributing to such racially unbalanced
crime statistics have been delineated by many conservative black leaders and
academicians. However, their solutions---most notably promoting individual
responsibility and accountability rather than reliance on the nanny state and
subscription to the "victimization" mentality---contradict liberal political
objectives, which seek to maintain black folks' status as wards of the state.

I draw your attention to this case not only to mourn the loss of a beautiful
young couple, but also to call attention to a despicable double standard in
our mainstream media.

In 1998, three white men in Jasper, Texas, beat a black man, James Byrd, then
chained him to the back of a pickup truck and dragged him three miles to his
death. Not surprisingly, Byrd's murder received national media attention---as
it should have.

Of course, when the Leftmedia jumps on a racial issue, especially in the
run-up to a presidential election, Democrat politicians will be rushing
the podium---in this case, opportunistically calling for "hate crimes"
legislation. Then-Governor of Texas George Bush said there was little need
for such legislation---after all, two of the defendants were sentenced to
death and the third received a life sentence.

That did not stop the NAACP from producing a political ad featuring the
following voiceover from Mr. Byrd's daughter: "My father was killed. He
was beaten, chained and dragged three miles to his death, all because he
was black. So when Governor George W. Bush refused to support hate-crimes
legislation, it was like my father was killed all over again."

Clearly, hate was a motivating factor in Jasper, but it was also a motivating
factor in Knoxville, which leads us to ask: Why do white-on-black hate
crimes invariably result in a media feeding frenzy, while black-on-white
hate crimes receive nary a mention? It is notable that both the Jasper and
Knoxville crimes occurred at about the same period in presidential-election
cycles---which perhaps explains the deafening silence of the national media's
coverage of the Knoxville case.

On the other hand, for the last year, the Leftmedia was busy convicting
three white Duke University lacrosse players for another "hate crime" ---the
alleged gang rape of a black woman named Crystal Gail Mangum. Millions of
dollars in defense-lawyer fees later, it turns out that Mangum was a liar
and the real victims were in fact the accused: David Evans, Reade Seligmann
and Colin Finnerty.

Egg still fresh on their faces, the national media quickly moved on to Don
Imus and his racially insensitive remarks.

In fact, the only black-on-white crime given as much media attention as
the Byrd and Duke cases was O.J. Simpson's murder of his ex-wife and her
companion---but that story was an MSM mainstay not because of Simpson's race,
but because of his celebrity status.

So what about Channon and Christopher?

News of their murders was briefly posted on the AP wire by Knoxville news
outlets, but major media outlets such as CNN, CBS, The New York Times and The
Washington Post have yet to mention it, much less headline it. Clearly, there's
a double standard when it comes to the media's coverage of interracial crime.

What about the double standard when it comes to race-hustlers like Jesse
Jackson and Al Sharpton (who fabricated the Tawana Brawley rape hoax)? The
only difference in racists such as Jackson and Sharpton and those in the KKK
is that the latter are not Leftmedia celebs. Is the NAACP ready to crank out
some political ads on hate crimes? Are Teddy Kennedy and all the congressional
race-baiters calling for additional hate-crimes legislation? Not for this
case they're not.

The five men charged with the rape and murder of Channon Christian and
Christopher Newsom will make their next court appearance on 17 May. It's
safe to say that they will do so without a satellite news-link truck anywhere
in sight.

 

[Drinking Cap]

Clearly, hate was a motivating factor in Jasper, but it was also a motivating
factor in Knoxville, which leads us to ask: Why do white-on-black hate
crimes invariably result in a media feeding frenzy, while black-on-white
hate crimes receive nary a mention?

This Cade-esque article fails to establish that this murder had anything to do with racial motivation. I think that's where, inevitably, this falls apart.

 

[Ham Murabi]

This Cade-esque article fails to establish that this murder had anything to do with racial motivation. I think that's where, inevitably, this falls apart.

Do you think if the circumstances had been the same but it was whites doing violence to whites there would be more coverage? Of if the victims were black but the killers were white.
You know, dumb white Southerners.
I think, inevitably, this is where your point falls apart.

 

[Drinking Cap]

Do you think if the circumstances had been the same but it was whites doing violence to whites there would be more coverage? Of if the victims were black but the killers were white.
You know, dumb white Southerners.

I think that any crime that didn't have race as a motivating, rather than an incidental, factor would not receive as much attention.

 

[Ham Murabi]

I think that any crime that didn't have race as a motivating, rather than an incidental, factor would not receive as much attention.

If the two victims were randomly shot you'd have a point. The fact is, they were raped, tortured, dismembered and burned. Under any other circumstances, wouldn't that give a story legs?

 

[fcdc]

the Leftmedia

Your argument (or, more accurately, the argument you copied and pasted) falls apart right there. Circumstantial ad hominem don't help anything.

The reason that the Duke case received attention is because Duke is a national university, with a nationally fielded sports team, that got into trouble. It's like the Rae Carruth case or the OJ Simpson case - our athletes doing evil, evil things (or potentially doing them) is deemed worth attention. Race is, while perhaps a factor in the Duke and Simpson cases (and not at all in the Carruth case), not the motivating factor for those cases. As the article itself says, fame was the issue, not race. However, you cannot say that the same was not true for the Duke rape case - that's cherry-picking and is a fallacious tactic.

The reason James Byrd's case received attention as a hate crime was because, like Matthew Shepherd or like Viola Liuzzo, it had hate as a clear motivation. Byrd was deliberately lynched. Shepherd was deliberately lynched. Liuzzo was shot dead by Klansmen, after a civil rights march, when driving home with a black man.

Furthermore, I would direct your attention to another media tactic: Missing White Girl syndrome. Natalee Holloway. Lori Hacking. The Runaway Bride woman. So on and so forth. Horrific murders of people of all different races went unreported while the media focused on Holloway, and she was a white woman who was possibly killed by people of different races and cultures than she. Her case got the media attention that you seem to claim never is given to white victims of minority violence. Whites killed by whites, such as Hacking, were also ballyhooed in the media. Even the possibility that a white woman could be abducted, such as the Runaway Bride, was spoken of in the media. I ask you in return, do you know the name Reyna Alvarado-Carrera? Tamika Huston? Shelton Sanders? I'll wait.

While the Newsoms' murder as you've described it was a horrific, detestable thing, the fact that they are white and were (assuming for the sake of argument, as I imagine that judicial determination has not been reached) killed by black men is irrelevant to the circumstances of the case, absent further evidence to the contrary. You cannot blame humanity or inhumanity on race, and that is what this article does. It is a subtle kind of racism, but it is racism all the same.

 

[Ham Murabi]

Your argument (or, more accurately, the argument you copied and pasted) falls apart right there.

The reason that the Duke case received attention is because Duke is a national university, with a nationally fielded sports team, that got into trouble. It's like the Rae Carruth case or the OJ Simpson case - our athletes doing evil, evil things (or potentially doing them) is deemed worth attention. Race is, while a factor, not the motivating factor for those cases. As the article itself says, fame was the issue, not race. However, you cannot say that the same was not true for the Duke rape case - that's cherry-picking and is a fallacious tactic.

The reason James Byrd's case received attention as a hate crime was because, like Matthew Shepherd or like Viola Liuzzo, it had hate as a clear motivation. Byrd was deliberately lynched. Shepherd was deliberately lynched. Liuzzo was shot dead by Klansmen, after a civil rights march, when driving home with a black man.

Furthermore, I would direct your attention to another media tactic: Missing White Girl syndrome. Natalee Holloway. Lori Hacking. The Runaway Bride woman. So on and so forth. Horrific murders of people of all different races went unreported while the media focused on Holloway, and she was a white woman who was possibly killed by people of different races and cultures than she. Her case got the media attention that you seem to claim never is given to white victims of minority violence. Whites killed by whites, such as Hacking, were also ballyhooed in the media. Even the possibility that a white woman could be abducted, such as the Runaway Bride, was spoken of in the media. I ask you in return, do you know the name Reyna Alvarado-Carrera? Tamika Huston? Shelton Sanders? I'll wait.

While the Newsoms' murder as you've described it was a horrific, detestable thing, the fact that they are white and were (assuming for the sake of argument, as I imagine that judicial determination has not been reached) killed by black men is irrelevant to the circumstances of the case, absent further evidence to the contrary. You cannot blame humanity or inhumanity on race, and that is what this article does. It is a subtle kind of racism, but it is racism all the same.

Good points.
I believe Matthew Shepard was a target because he was there, not because he was gay.

 

[Drinking Cap]

If the two victims were randomly shot you'd have a point. The fact is, they were raped, tortured, dismembered and burned. Under any other circumstances, wouldn't that give a story legs?

I don't know. Is this case alone in not receiving national media attention despite being a particularly heinous crime?

As the poster above said, what made the Byrd case of national attention was the motivation more than the action.

 

[paganangel]

Good points.
I believe Matthew Shepard was a target because he was there, not because he was gay.

uh huh. i would say the same thing about christian and newsom. only i'd be on better ground. but here's the thing, the story did get attention.
the difference here is when.
so what happened to make this story hit the press?

suspects of a different race. in jasper, they knew almost immediately who the fuckers were.

two dead bodies, no matter how bad the crime, doesn't make a story, unless the media or family wants to sell it. even then, it's tough without the right circumstance.

 

[cjh]

Good points.
I believe Matthew Shepard was a target because he was there, not because he was gay.

hmmm. interesting. maybe chris and channon were simply there.

 

[Lost Cause]

A product of societal "victim training"

That example is the best argument for a concealed weapons permit I can think of~

http://www.packing.org/

His & Hers~
http://www.shootingtimes.com/handgun_reviews/STspringfieldxd_061206A.jpg

 

[Drinking Cap]

That example is the best argument for a concealed weapons permit I can think of~

Which says something pretty sad about your intellectual imagination.

 

[Lost Cause]

"Which says something pretty sad about your intellectual imagination."

There's always someone out there advocating for the perps..

Which speaks volumes for your intellectual capacity of reason based on fact and not other tangents~

Self Defense is the first law of evolution and is a natural part of existence~


Unless you're saying the two murdered people deserved it.

 

[Lavared]

If I'm going to be murdered, I'd rather take out a killer or two with me than go it alone. I'm with Lost Cause on this one.

 

[nihil0001]