Yes, the Media Buries the Race of Terrorists—If They’re Not White
Analysis shows how coverage downplays the race of so-called 'minority' offenders
Frank James, the man arrested for Tuesday's New York City subway shooting, is a black nationalist and outspoken racist who railed against whites, Jews, and Hispanics.
A careful reader of the failing
New York Times could be forgiven for overlooking that.
In a nearly 2,000-word article on the attack, James's race is not mentioned.
The same is true for the coverage offered up by Reuters.
The
Washington Post only mentioned James's race in relation to his condemnation of training programs for "low-income Black youths."
A review of hundreds of articles published by major papers over a span of two years finds that papers downplay the race of non-white offenders, mentioning their race much later than they do for white offenders.
These papers are also three to four times more likely to mention an offender's race at all if he is white, a disparity that grew in the wake of George Floyd's death in 2020 and the riots that followed.
The data on nearly 1,100 articles about homicides from six major papers, all written between 2019 and 2021 shows the trend.
Those papers included the
Chicago Tribune,
Los Angeles Times,
New York Times,
Philadelphia Inquirer,
San Francisco Chronicle, and
Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
For each analysis, researchers collected the offender's and victim's name and race, and noted when and where the offender's race was mentioned, if at all.
The data suggest an alarming editorial trend in which major papers routinely omit information from news reports, presenting readers with a skewed picture of who does and doesn't commit crime.
These editorial choices are part and parcel with the "racial reckoning" that swept newsrooms in the wake of the woke movement, which saw journalists dramatically overhauling crime coverage to emphasize the view that the criminal justice system is racist at the root—perhaps at the expense of honesty about individual offenders' crimes.
Representatives of each paper did not return requests for comment for this article.
https://freebeacon.com/media/yes-the-media-bury-the-race-of-murderers-if-theyre-not-white/
They will love him in prison!
