Here's the gist of USAT's
Perpetrators have dubbed the violent practice as the "knockout game," where teens try to randomly knock out strangers with one punch. The attacks have raised concerns across the country. In New Haven, Conn., police are investigating six incidents in the last month as part of "the knockout trend."
And the NYT's:
Police officials in several cities where such attacks have been reported said that the "game" amounted to little more than an urban myth, and that the attacks in question might be nothing more than the sort of random assaults that have always occurred. Police cautioned that they had yet to see evidence of an organized game spreading among teenagers online, though they have been reluctant to rule out the possibility.
This sentence from USAT's account might cause trouble: "The attacks in New York have racial overtones because the attackers are black and the victims have been Jewish."
ReplyDeleteOh no! How horrible! Stretch Jimmy, stretch.
DeleteApparently you missed this from last week.
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DeleteApparently you missed your first damn clue, Jim.
DeleteWay to enforce that no-insult policy at 9:14, Jim. You suck.
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ReplyDeleteJim, ill preface this by saying im a longtime fan of the blog. Most of the time. But USAT got into trouble for a racially tinged headline on a stoey about box office numbers. This is a news story, and it clearly states that suspects have been arrested on hate crime charges.
ReplyDeleteTo reiterate, my comment concerned this sentence: "The attacks in New York have racial overtones because the attackers are black and the victims have been Jewish."
Delete1. That's a sentence that cried out for attribution. Who says there are racial overtones? The police? Victims? Witnesses?
2. The implication is there are no black Jews, that the victims were by default among a racial group that's not black. I believe the writer meant this was, yes, a hate crime possibly based on religion. But that's not what that sentence says.
In any case, hate crimes are not defined exclusively by race. They can also be directed toward someone based on religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, ethnicity, etc.
My now long-winded point is that whenever any media outlet writes about something driven by race, it's worth taking a long pause to think it through before hitting the publish button. This isn't about being politically correct, or guarding the interests of one group over another. It's about being accurate.
The story attributes the hate crime aspect to the New York attacks.
DeleteDoes anyone in USAT's story say the hate crime was based on race?
DeleteDid you read the frigging story?
DeleteHere's the USAT passage about the hate crime charge: "In New York, police have charged Amrit Marajh, 28, with two felony hate crimes after they said he assaulted a 24-year-old Jewish man wearing a yarmulke Friday in Brooklyn, NYPD Sgt. Carlos Nieves said.
Delete"Marajh, who is Trinidadian, was talking about the knockout game with three other men and made an anti-Semitic statement just before the incident, Nieves said."
And to answer your question, 8:05 (assuming it's directed at me): I've now read the USAT story three times. The only person saying these incidents have "racial overtones" is the reporter.
DeletePlease read the story again, and you'll see race is not mentioned as a factor by anyone else. As I wrote just above, the man charged with a hate crime "made an anti-Semitic statement just before the incident."
He's not been charged with assaulting a man because he was white/Asian/Native American/any-other-race-than-black.
One thing's for sure: Scrolling through the 550 comments on USAT's story shows readers definitely think race is a factor. (And if you think comment threads on this blog are rough, just read some of those.)
DeleteThis is also a trend, at least in New Haven, where a half dozen incidents have happened and there does appear some sort of concerted effort.
ReplyDeleteThis is a game to the jerkwads who are hitting the unsuspecting. What would you call this, Jim?
ReplyDeleteI'm not calling it anything because I don't have any first-hand information. That's up to the police and courts to determine.
DeleteMy post was intended to show how two national publications can arrive at mirror-opposite conclusions based on the same publicly available information.
You imply wrongly that there is some sort of made up premise here or that the facts dont back up the piece. You are wrong, Jim.
DeleteWhere and how do I imply one newspaper is more accurate than the other?
DeleteBy context. Don't play dumb. You just make yourself look even more ridiculous.
DeleteIn fact, there are plenty of reasons for me to imply the NYT's story is wrong. The press critic Jack Shafer regularly called out the Times for bogus trend stories like the one about more and more men liking cats.
Delete(This prompted a related joke: How does a journalist count to three? One, two, trend.)
Having said that, if you were stranded on that desert island mentioned somewhere in the Proverbs, and a newspaper carrier inexplicably was delivering a paper every day to your grass hut, which is the one newspaper among any in the world that you would choose to get -- and why?
So write that in your original post. Not that hard.
DeleteTo answer your other question, I will get a lifetime subscription to whatever paper looks at your history with Gannett, looks into why you have an ax to grind, and then reports it.
While you're waiting for that paper to never be launched, you can always read this blog.
DeleteYou're trying to make people believe your original posts didnt imply that USA Today had fucked up. That pig doesn't fly. Of course if it came down to one must have news source,hands down, it would be the NYT. That's not the point, Jim.
ReplyDeletePlenty to criticize at Usa Today, from sports, money and website to boneheaded editor decisions. Just not on this one, Jimbo.
If these were gays being beaten it would be a different story, and it would lead USA Today.
ReplyDeleteAnd there'd be no shortage of bloggers "noting the pattern."
DeleteComparing USA Today with the New York Times isn't fair. The NYT is a professional news organization that still honors objectivity and other journalistic values. USAT is a Gannett product (that says all you need to know) that is more concerned about gimmicks, marketing and getting rid of experience journalists. There might have been a time when the journalistic gap between the two was closing, but that gap has opened wider than ever in the last several years. Frankly, I don't see why anyone who reads the NYT would ever read USAT and vice versa.
ReplyDeleteRemember USA Today's standout work on the "racist church burnings" in the 1990s? And the New York Times' great job on those racist rapists on the Duke lacrosse team? Er, check that....
ReplyDelete