Tag Archives: #Journolism

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More journolism from The Philadelphia Inquirer The Inquirer writes its headline to stir up resentment toward the Philadelphia Police Department

Screenshot from Philadelphia Inquirer’s website, July 7, 2021, 4:42 PM EDT. Click to enlarge.

Sometimes you just know what you have to do: take a screenshot as documentary evidence, before someone tries to make history vanish.[1]I pointed out the tremendous bias in a tweet to Gabriel Escobar, the editor of the Inquirer, so it’s at least possible that the headline will be changed, not that I expect it. The screen capture to the right was taken by me, at 4:42 PM EDT on Wednesday, July 7, 2021.

References

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↑1 I pointed out the tremendous bias in a tweet to Gabriel Escobar, the editor of the Inquirer, so it’s at least possible that the headline will be changed, not that I expect it.
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With just half the year gone, Philadelphia has already topped yearly homicide totals for 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016 In promising to become "anti-racist," The Philadelphia Inquirer has become racist

We noted, just three weeks ago, that the City of Brotherly Love’s terrible homicide rate had topped the entire year’s total for 2013 and 2014:

    According to the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page, as of the end of Tuesday, June 15th, the city hit what could wryly be called a milestone, it’s 250th murder. The math is pretty bad: 250 homicides ÷ 166 days = 1.506 per day, × 365 = 549.70 murders for the year. The evil, reich-wing Donald Trump has been out of office for just five days short of five months now, the very liberal, opposed to mass incarceration District Attorney Larry Krasner has been renominated, the pandemic restrictions have (mostly) been lifted, and Philly’s murder rate is increasing.

Well, as Mickey East, formerly a political science professor at the University of Kentucky used to say, to encourage students to get their work done, tempus is fugiting, and now, three weeks later, the Philadelphia Police Department is reporting 285 homicides as of 11:59 PM on Monday, July 5th. 285 homicides ÷ 186 days = 1.532 per day, putting the city on schedule for 559.27 for the year. Those 285 homicides now top the year’s totals for 2015 and 2016, 280 and 277 homicides, respectively. At least as of 5:15 PM, The Philadelphia Inquirer had taken no notice of that fact, at least on its website’s main page.

In just 20 days, the murder rate has increased enough to add 9 or 10 more dead bodies on Philly’s mean streets, but, as already noted, The Philadelphia Inquirer, “an anti-racist news organization” according to publisher Elizabeth Hughes, doesn’t care unless one of those killed was an ‘innocent,’ or a ‘somebody,‘ or a cute little white girl.

What did Miss Hughes say the Inquirer would do to make itself into that “anti-racist news organization” she wanted it to be?

    A month after the (Buildings Matter, Too) headline was published, the newsroom began a comprehensive process to examine nearly every facet of what our journalists do. Almost 80 staffers, more than a third of the newsroom, have convened every week since. In working groups, they discuss complex issues and make recommendations that are then considered by a steering committee made up of managers and frontline staffers. To date, all have been adopted.

    Here’s a sampling of what has been done or is close to being launched:

    • Producing an antiracism workflow guide for the newsroom that provides specific questions that reporters and editors should ask themselves at various stages of producing our journalism.
    • Establishing a Community News Desk to address long-standing shortcomings in how our journalism portrays Philadelphia communities, which have often been stigmatized by coverage that over-emphasizes crime.
    • Creating an internal forum for journalists to seek guidance on potentially sensitive content and to ensure that antiracism is central to the journalism.
    • Commissioning an independent audit of our journalism that resulted in a critical assessment. Many of the recommendations are being addressed, and a process for tracking progress is being developed.
    • Training our staff and managers on how to recognize and avoid cultural bias.
    • Examining our crime and criminal justice coverage with Free Press, a nonprofit focused on racial justice in media.

And the result of all of that? Other than to criticize “gun violence,” a term which makes it sound as though inanimate firearms somehow levitate and shoot people all by themselves, the Inquirer almost never personalizes the actual shooters, never blames the people who pick up the guns and start firing.[1]A notable exception to that would be Keith Gibbson, but he is accused of killing an ‘innocent,’ Christine Lugo. Even saying that, the stories stopped after just two articles. In their great desire not to be racist, the Inquirer has become the racists they decry, examining everything through the prism of race, and deciding what to print, and not to print, based on its effects on race. That is, quite literally, discriminating on the basis of race! In “examin(ing) nearly every facet of what (their) journalists do,” they have become not journalists, but journolists![2]The spelling ‘journolist’ 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 … Continue reading

As I previously noted, I ran across a photo of the masthead of The Philadelphia Inquirer from February 25, 1953, and noticed the ‘taglines’ that it used: “Public Ledger” and “An Independent Newspaper for All the People”. By Public ledger, the Inquirer was setting itself up as Philadelphia’s newspaper of record, which Wikipedia defines as “a major newspaper with large circulation whose editorial and news-gathering functions are considered authoritative.” That Wikipedia article named four newspapers of record for the United States: The New York Times (Founded 1851), The Washington Post (1877), The Los Angeles Times (1881) and The Wall Street Journal (1889). First printed on Monday, June 1, 1829, the then Pennsylvania Inquirer is older than any of them. “An editorial in the first issue of The Pennsylvania Inquirer promised that the paper would be devoted to the right of a minority to voice their opinion and ‘the maintenance of the rights and liberties of the people, equally against the abuses as the usurpation of power.’”

The newspaper, by its publisher’s own admission, no longer cares about anything as radical as the ‘public’s right to know,’ because knowing the truth, the unvarnished truth, might perpetuate stereotypes about who commits crime in our community.[3]That quote is specifically from the Sacramento Bee, and forms the basis of the McClatchy Mugshot Policy, but it is clearly a reflection of what the Inquirer does as well. But, at least the publisher has admitted what she wants to do; I, for one, will continue to point that out.

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References
↑1 A notable exception to that would be Keith Gibbson, but he is accused of killing an ‘innocent,’ Christine Lugo. Even saying that, the stories stopped after just two articles.
↑2 The spelling ‘journolist’ 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.
↑3 That quote is specifically from the Sacramento Bee, and forms the basis of the McClatchy Mugshot Policy, but it is clearly a reflection of what the Inquirer does as well.
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Journolism at its finest: The Philadelphia Inquirer and one-sided reporting

We learned it in high school, if not earlier, how the Bill of Rights protected our rights as the citizens of a free republic. The First Amendment to the Constitution states:

    Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The hand-written copy of the proposed articles of amendment passed by Congress in 1789, cropped to show just the text in the third article that would later be ratified as the First Amendment.

Over the course of our history, the Supreme Court has ‘incorporated’ most of the Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment, to include protections for the people from actions by states and local governments, and Americans alive in the 21st century are all used to the concepts of freedom of speech.

We have, sadly, noted how some of our major media sources are no longer so adamant about protecting our First Amendment rights.

Now comes The Philadelphia Inquirer, with a very slanted article about how some people have exercised their freedom of speech, and freedom of peaceable assembly, and how horrible it is! Continue reading →

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What could possibly go wrong?

As we have previously noted, while we might forgive His Majesty King Henry VIII for believing that Catherine of Aragon or Anne Boleyn were somehow responsible for his first two children being daughters, the role of the X and Y chromosomes in determining the sex of mammals, including humans, has been known for over a century. Sex is not somehow “assigned” at birth; sex is determined at conception, depending upon whether the sperm which fertilized the egg carries the X or Y chromosome. We recognize the sex of a newborn child by visual examination of the child, but the characteristics which indicate sex developed long before birth, during gestation, as programmed in by the developing child’s DNA.

When you read or hear someone talking about sex being assigned at birth, you know automatically the pure bovine feces is about to follow. From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Continue reading →

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The politics of the #COVID19 vaccines have always been more important than the science Today's left have no tolerance for divergent views

I am not an #AntiVaxxer by any means, and I have had both doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. But I also do not dismiss the concerns of those who are skeptical, especially given that we have no information on any long term effects, because the vaccines haven’t even been around for a year yet.

The left try to dismiss such concerns as simply those of the uneducated, or as the lovely Amanda Marcotte tried to do, blame it on Republicans.

But when The Wall Street Journal starts to take notice of vaccine side effects, it’s no longer just the evil reich wing Republicans:

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Once again, the Lexington Herald-Leader hides mugshots of two accused murderers who are still on the loose Police say they are armed and dangerous, but apparently not dangerous enough for the Herald-Leader to tell readers how they look

I’ve run enough stories about the journolism[1]The spelling ‘journolist’ 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 … Continue reading of the Lexington Herald-Leader that I sometimes think I should include a subscription box for them!

The Herald-Leader is bound by the McClatchy Mugshot Policy, which prohibits the publication of police mugshots, unless approved by an editor, for serious reasons. One of those reasons is “is there an urgent threat to the community?”

1 man charged, 2 others wanted by Lexington police in separate murder cases

By Jeremy Chisenhall | June 25, 2021 | 3:33 PM | Updated: 4:33 PM EDT[2]Mr Chisenhall’s article was published at 3:33 PM. I have been refreshing the article during the writing of this article, to see if he has updated it with those mugshots. As of 5:00 PM EDT, he … Continue reading

Lexington police identified Friday suspects in two homicide cases and charged a suspect in another slaying, officials said Friday.The three homicide victims were found outside earlier this month.

Police first announced they were searching for Brandon Dockery, 31, who is accused of killing Raymar Alvester Webb. Webb was suffering from a gunshot wound when police found him in a parking lot near North Mill and West Short streets at about 1:40 a.m. on June 19, according to Lt. Dan Truex.Webb was taken to University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital where he later died, police said.

Dockery is considered armed and dangerous, police said.

Armed and dangerous, huh? Certainly seems as though he would qualify under the exception of an urgent threat to the community! And yes, the Lexington Police Department has his mugshot available, on their Homicide Investigation page. If it was available to me, it was available to Jeremy Chisenhall, the Herald-Leader reporter, who is certainly computer-savvy enough to have looked it up.

Kamond D Taylor, from his Michigan arrest record.

Lexington police also charged a man with murder after a fatal shooting outside The Office, which is a gentleman’s club in the 900 block of Winchester Road.Kamond Taylor, 30, was charged with the murder of 43-year-old Ali Robinson, police said. Robinson was shot June 9 outside the club. He was found by police and died at the scene, Lt. Ronald Keaton said.Taylor had already been detained in Detroit on local charges, police said.

Of course, under the McClatchy policy, the Herald-Leader would never publish Mr Taylor’s mugshot, because, already being in custody, he doesn’t constitute an urgent threat to the community. I am not bound by the McClatchy policy, and I do publish mugshots.

But Danzell Cruze certainly does!

Danzell Cruze, from the Kentucky Offender Online Lookup.

Also on Friday, police said a murder warrant had been issued for Danzell Cruse in the death of 38-year-old Jocko Green who was found about 3:50 p.m. June 17 in a parking lot outside an apartment complex in the 600 block of Winnie Street near the University Kentucky Chandler Hospital.He died about 7 p.m. at UK Hospital of gunshot wounds.

Cruse, who is considered armed and dangerous, also faces a charge of possessing a handgun as a convicted felon.

According to the Kentucky Offender Online Lookup, Mr Cruze was convicted on Jaunary 7, 2019, and sentenced to five years in the pokey, plus another year for a second offense. Yet he was released on December 30, 2020, after just two years, or 40%, in the slammer; I guess that the sentences ran concurrently. He is still supposed to be on probation.

If Mr Cruze had been kept locked up for his full five years, he would have been behind bars, and if really is the person who murdered Jocko Green, Mr Green would be alive today. This is precisely the kind of bad guy for whom the McClatchy policy has the listed exception. Did the Lexington Police Department not provide his mugshot to the Herald-Leader? Nope! It is on the Lexington Homicide Investigation page.

It’s simple: in their efforts not to “disproportionately harm people of color,”[3]Quote is actually from the Sacramento Bee, the lead McClatchy newspaper, and the first (as far as I know) to implement the no mugshot policy. the Herald-Leader is sacrificing the public’s right to know.

The paper, of course, has its First Amendment freedom of the press, and can choose not to publish anything the editors so choose. But my freedom of the press allows me to criticize their decisions.

References

References
↑1 The spelling ‘journolist’ 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.
↑2 Mr Chisenhall’s article was published at 3:33 PM. I have been refreshing the article during the writing of this article, to see if he has updated it with those mugshots. As of 5:00 PM EDT, he had not.
↑3 Quote is actually from the Sacramento Bee, the lead McClatchy newspaper, and the first (as far as I know) to implement the no mugshot policy.
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Journolism: We publish what the Lexington Herald-Leader will not.

It has become somewhat of a passion with me to provide the information the Lexington Herald-Leader will not. We have noted the McClatchy Company’s Mugshot Policy and how the local newspaper has honored it by declining to publish mugshots of non-white criminal suspects but doing so when the accused are white. And we noted Robert Stacy McCain’s point that journalists used to refer to the “public’s right to know,” but that such has been subjugated to political correctness, and to what the Sacramento Bee called “perpetuating stereotypes about who commits crime in our community.”

Mr McCain noted last Saturday that the media were, once again, seeking to avoid perpetuating stereotypes.

You might think that when 13 people are shot in downtown Austin, and the gunman is still at large, that it would be a public service to describe this murderous maniac. But you’re not “woke” enough:

Police have only released a vague description of the suspected shooter as of Saturday morning. 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.

Oh, if it was a right-wing white supremacist Trump voter who had committed this atrocity, you bet the media would have no qualms identifying the suspect, “perpetuating stereotypes” or not. Because the “woke” media have made themselves utterly useless as a source of facts, we must turn to Breitbart for the relevant information:

A statement from the Austin Police Department states . . . “It is unknown if there is one, or multiple suspects involved. There is one suspect described as a black male, with dread locks, wearing a black shirt and a skinny build.” . . . The shooting follows massive cuts in police funding by the Austin City Council. The council cut $150 million from the police budget . . .

Is it any wonder why people hate the “fake news” media?

The Austin American-Statesman is not a McClatchy newspaper. The Herald-Leader is:

2 more suspects arrested after death of Lexington man who was shot, set on fire

By Jeremy Chisenhall | June 14, 2021 | 11:55 AM EDT | Updated 4:11 PM EDT

Two more people have been charged in connection with a Lexington homicide after the victim’s body was set on fire in a barn, according to court records.

Martae Laron Shanks and Autumn Owens, both residents in the building where 38-year-old Lazarus Parker was allegedly shot and killed, have been charged with arson, abusing a corpse and criminal mischief, according to an indictment from a Fayette County grand jury.

The grand jury alleged that Shanks and Owens either intentionally started the fire or tried to help with the fire by purchasing gasoline in Fayette County and taking it to Bourbon County to burn Parker’s body.

Shanks and Owens were both arrested in Scott County and then transferred to the Lexington-Fayette County Detention Center last week, according to jail records.

Cecil T Russell (Fayette County Detention Center)

Cecil T. Russell, a co-defendant with Shanks and Owens in the case, was previously charged with murder. Russell was charged with killing Parker after a “cooperating witness” told investigators she heard Russell and Parker get into an argument before multiple gunshots rang out and someone screamed, according to an arrest warrant.

Cecil Russell’s mugshot was not published in the Herald-Leader, but I was able to find it in an Associated Press story published by WVLT-TV. The First Street Journal is dedicated to your right to know, and thus we reproduce it here.

Martae Shanks (Fayette County Detention Center)

More, I was able to open account with the Fayette County Detention Center, and get access to mugshots there, thus getting the mugshot of Mr Shanks. There are actually three mugshots of Mr Shanks in the records, dated October 16, 2015, March 4, 2021, and June 9, 2021, so it would seem that he is not unfamiliar with the jail. The record lists only the current offenses with which he is charged.

There were two mugshots for Autumn Owens, one dated March 4, 2021, and the current one June 10, 2021. It’s interesting that both of her bookings came concomitantly with Mr Shanks. As with Mr Shanks, only her current charges are listed on the jail website.

Autumn Owens

Is there something wrong with a mid-sized newspaper, part of a national newspaper chain, subjugating the public’s right to know to political correctness? I think that there is, and that’s why this website goes ahead and finds and published these mugshots. As for the claim that this “perpetuates stereotypes,” please note that one of the three suspects here is white, and that, in my previous post with mugshots, one of the convicted criminals was white, and one was black.[1]I confess: I had originally written that post with the black offender’s mugshot first, and the white offender’s second. Since Twitter tends to pick up the first photo in an article, I … Continue reading

A further note: the Lexington homicide investigations page has not, as of this publication, been updated since May 9th. We had previously noted this, and there have been three additional homicides in the city since that date. Someone needs to start doing his job.

Mr McCain was correct, and the credentialed media, decades ago, were correct: the public does have a right to know these things. The question is: why so small, private websites like Mr McCain’s or mine have to be the ones to

References

References
↑1 I confess: I had originally written that post with the black offender’s mugshot first, and the white offender’s second. Since Twitter tends to pick up the first photo in an article, I switched the order, so that the tweet of the article would show the white offender.
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Well, that didn’t take long! Journolism at its finest!

Well, I didn’t have to wait long! Journolism[1]The spelling ‘journolist’ 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 … Continue reading at its finest!

After posting, at 7:42 AM this morning, on the Lexington Herald-Leader eschewing posting the mug shots of black criminal suspects, at 9:02 AM reported Jeremy Chisenhall posted:

$25k stolen in 1 minute. Thieves hit Lexington shops amid national trading card frenzy

By Jeremy Chisenhall | June 4, 2021 | 09:02 AM EDT

Lexington police are looking for the man pictured here who is accused of breaking into a trading card shop and stealing merchandise. Provided by Bluegrass Crime Stoppers.

It only took about 68 seconds for a burglary suspect to smash through the front door of Jimmy’s Kentucky Roadshow Shop, a Lexington trading card store, snatch about $25,000 worth of cards and take off.

The cops and owner Jimmy Mahan were on the scene within minutes in the early morning hours of April 29, but it was too late to stop anything. The “smash and grab” burglar was gone with a bunch of unopened, untraceable card packs.

In another burglary last month, a man kicked in the glass door of a different Lexington card shop and made off with a “large quantity” of baseball trading cards, according to Lexington police. The shop, Baseball Card Warehouse, posted about the break-in on Facebook, saying it caused “a mess and a lot of issues with inventory.”

There’s more at the original.

Now, there are some differences. In this case, the (alleged) burglar can’t be identified in the photo provided, and published in the Herald-Leader, where the mugshots come with individual identification. And the (alleged) burglar is on the loose. But the Herald-Leader also declined to print the mugshot of Juanyah J Clay when he was on the loose, and charged with the far more serious crime of murder.

The more immediate difference is obvious: Mr Clay is black, and this unidentified (alleged) burglar appears to be white. Though not directly part of the McClatchy Mugshot Policy, the precursor article, in the Sacramento Bee, let us know what the concern really is:

Publishing these photographs and videos disproportionately harms people of color and those with mental illness, while also perpetuating stereotypes about who commits crime in our community.

While I cannot read the minds of Mr Chisenhall, or of Peter Baniak, Executive Editor and General Manager of the newspaper, it almost seems as though the Herald-Leader is attempting to create a stereotype of its own about who commits crime in our community.

But, nahhh, that can’t be it!

References

References
↑1 The spelling ‘journolist’ 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.
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Political correctness in the Lexington Herald-Leader (Part 5)

Once again, the Lexington Herald-Leader has adhered to McClatchy Company’s mugshot policy.

2 teenagers charged with murder, robbery in the death of another Lexington teen

By Jeremy Chisenhall | June 4, 2021 | 7:00 AM

Michael Rowland. Photo by Fayette County Detention Center.

Lexington police have arrested two teenagers and charged them with the murder of another teen after a fatal shooting in March.

Michael Roland, 18, was arrested Thursday and charged with murder and robbery after the death of 18-year-old Montaye Mullins, according to police. Mullins was shot in the early morning hours of March 11 and found by police at the intersection of Augusta Drive and Raleigh Road.

Mullins was taken to a local hospital where he later died, police said.

Police also arrested a 17-year-old whose name they didn’t release. Lexington police typically don’t disclose the names of defendants who were under the age of 18 at the time of a crime.

There’s more at the original, but what isn’t at the Herald-Leader original is that mugshot; I found that with a simple Google search, and it was on WKYT-TV’s website. WKYT, channel 27, is Lexington’s CBS affiliate. WTVQ, channel 36, the ABC affiliate and the NBC affiliate, WLEX-TV, channel 18, had the mugshot on their websites as well.

As we have previously noted, McClatchy’s mugshot policy is:

Publishing mugshots of arrestees has been shown to have lasting effects on both the people photographed and marginalized communities. The permanence of the internet can mean those arrested but not convicted of a crime have the photograph attached to their names forever. Beyond the personal impact, inappropriate publication of mugshots disproportionately harms people of color and those with mental illness. In fact, some police departments have started moving away from taking/releasing mugshots as a routine part of their procedures.

To address these concerns, McClatchy will not publish crime mugshots — online, or in print, from any newsroom or content-producing team — unless approved by an editor. To be clear, this means that in addition to photos accompanying text stories, McClatchy will not publish “Most wanted” or “Mugshot galleries” in slide-show, video or print.

Any exception to this policy must be approved by an editor. Editors considering an exception should ask:

  • Is there an urgent threat to the community?
  • Is this person a public official or the suspect in a hate crime?
  • Is this a serial killer suspect or a high-profile crime?

If an exception is made, editors will need to take an additional step with the Pub Center to confirm publication by making a note in the ‘package notes‘ field in Sluglife.

So, the policy was followed, again. The odd thing is, the newspaper has made exceptions to that policy, as noted here, here, here, and here, though in every case in which the policy was broken the criminal suspect was white.

Will the paper adhere to the policy the next time a white murder suspect is arrested? They’ve broken it for people charged with lesser crimes! But, as always, I will continue to monitor it.