[antimedia] antimedia: I have never written about the Duke rape case....

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Posted by antimedia:
I have never written about the Duke rape case....
http://www.antimedia.us/posts/1176953741.shtml


   ....[1]until now.

     Newsrooms tend to follow a conventional story line on social
     issues. As the late commentator and editor Michael Kelly wrote,
     "most journalists learn to see the world through a set of standard
     templates into which they plug each day's events." The most obvious
     templates concern race â whites are oppressing blacks, gender â men
     are oppressing women, and class â the privileged are oppressing the
     poor.
     Since all three of these templates were in play during the Duke
     race case, how surprising is it that this triple high tide resulted
     in some of the worst journalism of the decade?

   These aren't the only templates the press has. You can see at least
   two more in the Virginia Tech tragedy; authorities are always wrong in
   their responses and gun violence occurs because guns exist.
   The former is easy to fit into any story. If they locked down the
   school and nothing happened, they would be wrong for overreacting.
   Since they didn't lock down the school and something happened, they're
   still wrong, because they didn't take the threat seriously.
   The latter is a consistent theme. No matter how someone dies from
   gunfire, they would be alive today if we would just ban guns. Suicide,
   homicide or accident, it doesn't matter. Just ban guns and the problem
   is solved.
   Note that whatever the facts are is irrelevant.

     And some writers, unable to give up on conventional template
     coverage even now, are still attacking the lacrosse players. Terry
     Moran of ABC News, in a blog item for ABC's Web site, "Don't Feel
     Sorry for the Dukies," said that although the three players were
     rightly vindicated, we shouldn't feel sorry for them because they
     got special treatment, "both negative and positive" and besides,
     they had the financial resources to defend themselves.
     He might have argued the other way, as one of the Duke players did:
     if an out-of-control prosecutor can put well-off and innocent
     whites through the legal ringer, how many poor blacks are getting
     similar treatment without publicity.
     Mr. Moran wrote of the players, they are "well-heeled,
     well-connected, well-publicized young men whose conduct, while not
     illegal, was not entirely admirable either." A marginal point: why
     is Mr. Moran pronouncing on this case at all â he's supposed to be
     a reporter, not an opinion-monger.

   So, if you're white, and if you're rich, then you don't deserve fair
   treatment from the press. After all, you'll recover. You have the
   resources.
   As despicable as that attitude is, it's normal in the media.

     Selena Roberts, in a March 25 sports column in the New York Times,
     seemed miffed by information that the charges against the lacrosse
     players would be dropped. Why were the men going to be cleared? Not
     because an injustice had been done, Ms. Roberts decided, but
     because a "consensus yearn for closure" had settled over both
     sides. "No one's burning cars either way," a Durham store clerk
     told Ms. Roberts.
     A Duke professor explained that "There is a let it end sense to the
     long debate." The boys weren't innocent so much as everyone was
     just tired of the case. Ms. Roberts detected "an irrefutable
     culture of misogyny, racial animus and athletic entitlement that
     went unrestrained that night."
     But these charges are indeed refutable. The women's lacrosse team
     backed the boys, saying that they were good men who treated women
     well. All recent black players on the men's team denied any racial
     animus from white players.
     Ms. Roberts was irked that defenders of the Duke players had sent
     her hostile e- mails. She assured readers that the father of the
     accuser still believes her story. She signed off by writing: "A
     dismissal doesn't mean forget everything. Amnesia would be a poor
     defense to the next act of athletic privilege."
     Everything in her column was either irrelevant or wrongheaded. The
     gist of the column is that the case had come out wrong, with the
     privileged, white males beating the rap.

   What's the point of having a media, if the facts aren't being
   reported? Opinions are a dime a dozen. You're reading mine right now,
   and it didn't cost you a thing except a few moments of your time. But
   the media isn't supposed to be about opinions. It's supposed to be
   about facts.
   Sadly, it isn't, and we all suffer for it. (Hat tip to [2]Austin Bay.)

References

   1. http://www.nysun.com/article/52580
   2. http://austinbay.net/blog/?p=1759