Monday, March 26, 2012

In slain teen's case, long road to national attention

From a New York Times story this morning about the Feb. 26 shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla.: 

Martin
Notably, many of the national media figures who initially devoted time to the shooting are black, which some journalists and advocacy groups say attests to the need for diversity in newsrooms. The racial and ethnic makeup of newsrooms, where minorities tend to be underrepresented relative to the general population, has long been a source of tension for the news industry.

13 comments:

  1. Completely understand the need for diversity.but diversity over talent is problematic. The washout rate is high, training nil and we hang onto people (make that of all races) way too long after we realized we made a bad hire.how do you fix that?

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  2. This is your tipical liberal media Jim. This story is simply not that interesting. So we the media like to speculate and twist. We truly do not have the facts as this is a police investigation. We would not like to let the process work. So we feed the less informed what they want to hear. We know they are ill informed cause they are relying on us for they information.

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  3. The media’s rush to judgment yet again is further proof why its credibility in this country continues to decline. By the way, since when does a media outlet refer to the child of a white male and Hispanic female as a White-Hispanic? Unfortunately, too many are doing just that, a move that also harms the entire industry. Pathetic.

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  4. The problem is with the police - they did not properly investigate this case. They tested the shooting victim for drugs and not the shooter. They just assumed that the boy was guilty and sent Zimmerman home with his bloody nose and gun. Now the police seem to be leaking info to make the kid look bad. I'm glad the "liberal media" is focused on this story.

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  5. Who let this kid go out at night?

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  6. The picture of the kid is not recent. He looks like a thug in recent photos, not sure if a Tampa or Miami website has updated photos. Same for the shooter, he doesn't look like a mass murder like the pictures all the media sites are running.

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  7. I have to agree with 12:38. We lost some very good people at our paper because they weren't even considered for positions because of a diversity push. Good stories are good stories and good employees are good employees. Period.

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  8. 4:47 WIthout the media's attention, the more detailed investigations now underway would not have been launched -- and we wouldn't have a fuller airing of the facts.

    1:07 The "recent photos" of a young man flashing gang signs have now been exposed as fakes.

    While the NYT story doesn't mention this, I think a critical factor in this case getting more attention is that the photo of Martin, which I've reproduced here, shows him as he appears to be: a typical high schooler.

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  9. Your head shot shows him as a 13-year old. He was four years older when he died.

    The photo of him wearing a wife-beater t-shirt, with a grille in his mouth and a dartboard behind him, is not accurate? Drudge has been using it for days.

    I'm glad the initial stories and photos, loaded with lamestream media bias, have been questioned by more creditable sources.

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  10. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/03/27/media-matters-honcho-sorry-after-blasting-drudge-for-trayvon-photo/

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  11. 4:17 Oh, come on. Fox News and Drudge are politically partisan media, leaning heavily to the right. They both have an agenda.

    Major media isn't perfect, but it strives to be bias-free.

    And your own use of the phrase "wife-beater" speaks volumes about your own perspective. You would not see that pejorative word used n a serious media outlet unless it was part of quoted matter.

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  12. Truthfully, a lot of people trying to equate diversity with lack of talent are usually the most mediocre journalists in the newsroom but somehow believe that they ought to enjoy the privilege of being associated with top-flight talent of all backgrounds. So tired of hearing this whining about protecting undeserving minorities, which based on diversity numbers, just doesn't hold up.

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