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This is an interesting (and confounding) topic. On a corollary note, Austin recently experienced a mass shooting in a popular Downton area. 14 people were shot
by xibalba 5y ago
This is an interesting (and confounding) topic.
On a corollary note, Austin recently experienced a mass shooting in a popular Downton area. 14 people were shot. One died. Another is paralyzed. The local paper of record explicitly declined to publish the description of the suspects as released by the police so as to not "perpetuate stereotypes". The question I have is, what is the obligation to report the facts of a story, regardless of consequence? My belief is that reporting should report all the facts and let the chips fall where they may. But I also understand that reasonable people can disagree. (In this case, it seemed unreasonable to me as one shooter was still at large.)
- dwaltrip 5y agoThere are an infinite number of facts. There always is a decision made about which particular facts to include and how to frame them. One can’t simply “report the facts”. That being said, with difficulty, journalists can make an effort to minimize the amount of “story-telling” that occurs in a news article. I appreciate that the AP seems to be better about this than many other sources.
- xsmasher 5y agoWithholding the description reasonable if it is so vague as to be useless. "Black male, 18-35" is not useful or actionable information. If it's a more detailed description, and the shooter was still at large, then I agree with you.
- axaxs 5y agoI'm in full agreement, iff it's standardized across the board. But it's very much not. As much as I hate the namesake, Coulter's Law is silly yet sadly mostly correct.
- beervirus 5y agoIf he’d been white, does anyone doubt that his description would have been published?
- shard972 5y agoOf course, white supremecy
- catillac 5y agoIt sounds like the reason was to not perpetuate stereotypes, and in general caucasian people don’t seem to have that stereotype as far as I can tell. Whether they would have posted it or not is unclear, but if their only reason for not posting was as to not perpetuate stereotypes and the offender wasn’t living under that stereotype…
- cronix 5y agoChicken or egg? I'm inclined to think that the way the stereotypes were started and then perpetuated to begin with was they reported the persons color in news stories for decades for everyone who basically wasn't white. Couldn't artificially focusing on any particular group or groups eventually lead to a stereotype if you aren't reporting on the others equally?
- ggggtez 5y agoThe stereotype of the "scary black man" predates cable news reporting. The "savage colored man" predates slavery, and goes back to racist colonists, racist explorers, if not even before that and before that. It doesn't matter which came first. The point is that the stereotypes are not relevant to today's society no matter how they started.
- gotoeleven 5y agoDo other regular black people appreciate when newspapers do this? Anyone with half a brain knows what it means when the newspaper declines to describe a suspect. It seems like it will both not have the intended effect of "not perpetuating stereotypes" and signal to everyone else that black people need special treatment. It seems entirely worse in every respect.
- ggggtez 5y ago
- Bostonian 5y agoI disagree, since that description does exclude a large fraction of the population.
- xsmasher 5y agoThat doesn't make it useful or actionable.
- xibalba 5y agoNo, it doesn't. At least not in this case. Austin is 8% black. So 4% black male. Then you narrow it down by age range, appearance, etc and you now have a very narrow pool. The public deserves to know about a violent, armed murderer in their midst, political correctness be damned.
- mc32 5y agoBut then why even mention it was a male at all?
- barbacoa 5y ago"skinny black male with dread locks wearing a black shirt" was the description that the police gave of the suspect.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- JohnWhigham 5y agoFunnily enough, both suspects in the Austin case are teenagers.
- pessimizer 5y ago> The question I have is, what is the obligation to report the facts of a story, regardless of consequence? None. I don't even know why the news reports shootings at all. If they affect traffic, or the police are searching for witnesses or have drawings or photos of suspects that need to be identified, fine. Crime statistics, and the city's justification of the job they're doing? Fine. But the leering at victims and the poring over the perpetrator's life is just pornography. Also, unless the failure to convict or the conviction despite mitigating evidence is part of a trend, or an indication of specific corruption - I don't know why it's supposed to be relevant to my life except to make me vote for the politician who assuages my fears of violence.
- xibalba 5y agoIn this particular case, one of the shooters was still at large. Do you not think the public has a right to information about a dangerous, armed fugitive who may be in their midst? I do. Take the Boston Marathon bombers. Should the press have remained mum on the identities of the suspects? Now, I'm not saying that these situations are perfectly analogous, but surely you agree that, at some point, the press has an obligation to report imminent danger to the public,no? The question is, where is the line (or is there one at all)? I would argue that the press is duty bound to report just the facts, and all of the facts.
- diffeomorphism 5y agoConsidering stories about mobs trying to lynch innocent people they thought responsible? That seems like a pretty clear "No, the public definiely does not" to me. After they are convicted, maybe.
- xibalba 5y agoThe risk of vigilante mobs was not cited by the Austin-American Statesman. Rather, they claimed a risk of "perpetuating stereotypes". Secondarily, claiming that there is a risk of vigilante mob justice is absurd. If you think I'm wrong, please point me to a credible source which reports on an instance of vigilante mob justice in the United States from the last 30 years.
- bawolff 5y agoSome people shoot places up for the notoriety. Not giving it to them seems reasonable to me. That said, not perpetuating sterotypes is a stupid reason.
- ggggtez 5y agoI don't think journalists have any requirement to publish who the suspects in a case are. Think about it a moment: A suspect hasn't been convicted of anything. If there are two suspects for the same crime, then one of them is guaranteed to be innocent. And in the case of mass-shootings, we've seen that the public goes crazy. Wasn't it the boston-marathon bomber that had people performing their own vigilante work and tracking down the wrong person? Sometimes it's better if the news doesn't get involved in pointing fingers at this stage of the investigation. Let the police do their jobs, and report something only after the police are actually sure they have the person they are accusing of the crime. Simply being investigated isn't newsworthy.
- adolph 5y ago> explicitly declined to publish the description of the suspects as released by the police so as to not "perpetuate stereotypes" That rationale is a bit ironic but there's a bit more to it: The Austin American-Statesman is not including the description as it is too vague at this time to be useful in identifying the shooter and such publication could be harmful in perpetuating stereotypes and potentially put innocent individuals at risk. https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2021/06/12/what-we-know-mass-shooting-downtown-austin-saturday/7666729002/ https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2021/06/12/what-we-know...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- xibalba 5y agoThe description was, for Austin, sufficiently specific to drastically narrow down the candidate pool of lookalikes. Keep in mind, this armed and dangerous mass shooter was still at large amongst the public. At what point do the scales tip in favor of safety and caution over "perpetuating stereotypes"?
- adolph 5y ago> this armed and dangerous mass shooter was still at large amongst the public And quickly picked up from his summer school class in Kileen. The phrase mass shooter seems to be a suitcase phrase, a lot of different meanings are packed into the same scary words. Additional information is needed to understand the risk profile. Was the mass shooter on a continuous rampage, or performed a horrific act from which they fled, or periodically performs the same act? It seems in this case there was a mass shooting from which the suspect(s) fled. What is the risk profile to address in such a case and what tradeoffs are socially acceptable and feasible to address the risk? A-AS made a call to not describe the suspect and also a call to perform some virtue signaling as justification. I think the former is reasonable given the risk profile but the latter is a poor reason outside the specific circumstances.
- scotty79 5y agoI don't think there's obligation to report all the facts. Otherwise you'd be obliged to publish eye color of the perpetrator or his blood type or every other irrelevant detail. It obvious that reporting will omit some fact, and reporting body is the one what's worth publishing by assesing relevancy and social impact.
- seb1204 5y agoThe media rush for clicks and advertising is not the right driver for such kind of news.
- seb1204 5y agoDo it like New Zealand, write about the victims only. Don't give in to the urge to feed the longings for name of the suspects.
- brokenmachine 5y ago"Lots of people have been shot, and the shooter is still at large on your street. We have a good description of them but don't want to tell you".
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y agoMaybe because we have such a skewed media system in the US that facts mean nothing if you can monetize said stereotypes. Honestly, we need to restrict media companies speech somewhat. It's certainly not fair that they can control information on top of allow for whatever libel they want to pass through so long as they add a retraction later.