Wednesday, January 28, 2009

CM PRESS # 595


DAILY PILOT REALLY, REALLY WANTS YOU TO KNOW THIS CRIMINAL IS WHITE
(Ah, that's not the criminal in the photo, that's Karl Marx)

Yesterday, the DP ran a news story on the front page about an outstanding burglary suspect.
The DP also ran a large photo of the suspect, who is clearly white.

However, the DP apparently really wanted you to know the guy is white because they then stated in the article: "[The criminal] is white...." LINK

Here's how the OC Register handled the same story

In the OCR, by contrast, the story also had the photo of the suspect, but the OCR didn't feel is was necessary to also write in the body of the story that the suspect is white. LINK

THE CM PRESS POSITION

We believe that all relevant descriptive information should be given in newspaper stories about outstanding violent or major criminal suspects and that there should be no PC hiding of such identities. Just report the facts and let the chips fall where they may.

In the present case, the OCR at least showed consistency with its PCitis policy by not stating in writing the race/ethnicity of the suspect, and instead let the photo speak for itself.

The DP, on the other hand, seems to have really wanted readers to know the suspect is white by not only publishing his photo but also by describing him in the body of the article as "white."

The OCR thus gets good marks from the CM PRESS and the DP get's a failing grade on this story.

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Those are our unPC opinions as we do the job that local newspapers used to do.



 http://frankspeech.com/