More journolism from the Lexington Herald-Leader Are the editors taking their decisions based upon race?

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No, that’s not a typo in the article headline; journolism has a real meaning. The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their objectivity. I use the term ‘journolism’ frequently when writing about media bias.

We noted, on January 27th, that what my best friend used to refer to as the Lexington Herald-Liberal was perfectly fine with ignoring the McClatchy Mugshot Policy when it came to white people accused of crimes, but seemed to decline to do so for black defendants. And here they go again:

    State trooper injured in shooting released from hospital; Lexington man charged

    by Karla Ward | Saturday, January 29, 2022 | 1:23 PM EST | Updated: 4:11 PM EST

    LeeQuan Taylor, photo by Kentucky Department of Corrections, via WCHS-TV.

    A 22-year-old Lexington man is charged with attempted murder of a police officer in connection with a shooting that injured a Kentucky State Police trooper in Harrison County Friday afternoon.

    Kentucky State Police said in a tweet Saturday afternoon that the trooper, whose name has not been released, was recuperating at home after being released from University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital.

    Aside from the attempted murder charge, LeeQuan T. Taylor is charged with first-degree assault and possession of a handgun by a convicted felon. He was taken to the Bourbon County Regional Detention Center after his arrest Friday night.

There’s more at this link.

LeeQuan Taylor, photo by Bourbon County Detention Center, via Fox56. Click to enlarge.

The Bourbon County Detention Center released a more recent mugshot of the accused.

The Bourbon County photo was included in the Fox56 story, originally posted at 12:58 PM, and updated at 2:57 PM, well before the Herald-Leader story was updated, so it was available to Karla Ward, the reporter. The newspaper’s story about the arrest of Burl Hollen is still available, and despite the paper being notified, both by comment on the story and via Twitter of their use of the mugshot of a white defendant, the photo is still on the story. The story on Mr Hollen does not indicate that he has a past criminal record.

Yet Saturday’s story on the capture of Mr Taylor noted that he is a previously convicted felon, which means, at least according to the Herald-Leader’s reporting, worse than Mr Hollen; Mr Hollen is innocent until proven guilty, while Mr Taylor, though innocent until proven guilty in the shooting of the state trooper, is guilty of felonies in the past. One would think that, if the editors of the newspaper were going to make an exception to the McClatchy Mugshot Policy, it would have been for Mr Taylor, not Mr Hollen. But, as I have noted in the past, Mr Taylor is black, while Mr Hollen is white.

Is that really the difference?

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One thought on “More journolism from the Lexington Herald-Leader Are the editors taking their decisions based upon race?”

  1. I checked at 10:55 AM EST on Sunday, January 30, 2022, and the same situation applies: the photo of Mr Hollen is still on the original story, while the mugshot of Mr Taylor is not.

    I did inform the newspaper of their inconsistency in this tweet.

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