Tag Archives: #Journolism

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Political correctness in the Lexington Herald-Leader? (Part 4)

We have previously noted that the Lexington Herald-Leader does not like posting photographs of accused criminals, even when those suspects are still at large and publishing the photo might help the police capture him. Thus, we were somewhat surprised when the Herald-Leader did post a photo of an accused, but not convicted, criminal suspect. Was this an editorial change?

Apparently not.

Man shot by Lexington police accused of taking hostages inside home, firing shots

By Morgan Eads and Jeremy Chisenhall | May 03, 2021 | 3:11 PM EDT

A man who was shot over the weekend by Lexington police is facing multiple charges related to accusations that he held multiple children and adults in a home as hostages.

Ryan Dontese Jones, 21, is charged with first-degree burglary, four counts of kidnapping a minor, five counts of kidnapping an adult and nine counts of wanton endangerment.

Jones was set to be arraigned Monday, but he had been put in isolation in the Fayette County jail due to COVID-19 precautions and could not attend the remote proceedings. His arraignment was rescheduled for next week. His bond is set at $50,000, according to court records.

Lexington police said they were originally called to the 600 block of Marshall Lane for a report of shots fired at about 5:30 p.m. on Saturday. An officer who arrived was shot at by Jones and returned fire, striking him in the shoulder, police said. The officer was not injured.

Jones is accused of forcing his way into a home on Marshall Lane, and pointing a handgun and shooting at the people inside, according to his arrest citation. He is also accused of restraining multiple adults and children to use them as “hostages,” according to the citation.

Ryan Dontese Jones. Photo by Lexington-Fayette County Detention Center.

This is the mug shot of the accused suspect, but no, it wasn’t in what my, sadly late, best friend used to call the Herald-Liberal. It was published by Channel 36, WTVQ, and that’s where I found it.

The photo was provided by the Lexington/Fayette County jail; it is free to the media. Why, then, did the Herald-Leader choose not to use it?

In our previous articles on this subject, we noted that the Herald-Leader included illustrations in their articles that were on topic, but simply fluff illustrations, and thus there were no concerns about a photo of the suspect taking up too much bandwidth. To be fair, in this article, the herald-Leader included a photo which was of the crime scene itself, so whatever bandwidth concerns the newspaper might have had, if they have any at all, were used in a photo directly related to the event. Nevertheless, the photo is simply of seven Lexington Police cruisers, on the street, with crime scene tape. It is a too-common image which does not actually inform the reader of much at all, though we can tell that the neighborhood is one of what appears to be a decent-looking subdivision of brick single-family homes, in what seems like a ‘starter home‘ neighborhood.

So, why is the Herald-Leader so seemingly unwilling to publish mug shots of accused criminal suspects? If it is because the suspects have been accused, but not convicted, why did the paper include the photo of Ronnie Helton? If it is to protect those who have been accused but not convicted, why print the names of the suspects? Those, after all, are far more likely to be found in a Google search, and, if Mr Jones is acquitted of these charges, and then goes out job hunting, any responsible human resources department is going to do a due diligence Google search, and find that he was accused of a pretty serious crime.

What, then, is the point?

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Killadelphia Four overnight homicides aren't even newsworthy as far as The Philadelphia Inquirer is concerned

Today being Friday, there won’t be any more updates on the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page until Monday morning, which means that we’ll get the weekend homicide numbers all together. Nevertheless, you’d think that even the very #woke Philadelphia Inquirer would take notice of four more homicides in a day!

Screen capture of Inquirer main page, April 30, 2021, 10:25 AM EDT. Click to enlarge

It’s possible, of course, that some of those four additional homicides were from shootings from a couple of days ago, victims who didn’t give up the ghost until yesterday, but still, as of 10:26 AM EDT, nothing but crickets from the editors of what I have sometimes called The Philadelphia Enquirer.[1]RedState writer Mike Miller called it the Enquirer, which brings to my mind the National Enquirer, probably by mistake, so I didn’t originate it, but I thought it very apt.

Last year saw 499 homicides in the City of Brotherly Love, initially reported as 502, but later amended down. Assuming that three people didn’t actually recover from death on New Year’s Eve, my guess is that a few people didn’t expire until after midnight, though, knowing what a tool of Mayor Jim Kenney Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw is, any sort of ‘massaging’ of the numbers is possible.

The numbers are stark. Last year’s 499 homicides was just one short of the record set in 1990, during the worst of the crack cocaine wars. As of April 29, 2020, ‘only’ 124 people had been murdered in Philadelphia. That was a 19.23% increase over 2019, but still ‘only’ 1.033 homicides per day.[2]With 2020 being a leap year, April 29th was the 120th day of the year, not the 119th as it is in non-leap years.

Things worsened as the year went along, following the Mostly Peaceful Protests™ over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the COVID-19 lockdowns. Oddly enough, crime kept increasing in Philadelphia, despite the lockdown orders. I was just so, so shocked!

But 169 homicides is a 36.29% increase over bloody 2020, and 62.50% increase over just two years ago. In case anyone hadn’t noticed, Donald Trump isn’t President anymore — though the left will still blame him — and we’ve had a COVID-19 vaccine available, and cities and states doing everything they can to get people vaccinated, and states and cities, including Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, are reducing their COVID-19 restrictions. Derek Chauvin was convicted on all charges concerning the killing of George Floyd. At this point, the left are out of external excuses on which to blame the increased violence in our inner cities.

Not that they won’t make up something else, of course, because that’s what they do.

So, what concerns the editors of the Inquirer?

There was a seemingly endless list of articles on the Eagles drafting DaVonta Smith in the first round of the NFL draft! But there were no stories which led me to believe that #BlackLivesMattered to the editors of the Inquirer. The #woke nature of the Inquirer staff, the ones who forced the firing resignation of Executive Editor and Senior Vice President Stan Wischnowski over the headline Buildings Matter, Too, even though Philadelphia experienced plenty of damage and violence in the protests over the killing of George Floyd, would have made anyone think that #BlackLivesMatter was of ultimate importance to the staff, so important that the innocent play on words over a legitimate concerns over the historic buildings in one of our oldest cities could be torched in those Mostly Peaceful Protests™.

But if the staff believe that black lives really matter, it’s obvious that the untimely ending of black lives, unless at the hands of a white policeman, simply isn’t newsworthy.

References

References
↑1 RedState writer Mike Miller called it the Enquirer, which brings to my mind the National Enquirer, probably by mistake, so I didn’t originate it, but I thought it very apt.
↑2 With 2020 being a leap year, April 29th was the 120th day of the year, not the 119th as it is in non-leap years.
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Political correctness in the Lexington Herald-Leader? (Part3) I wonder if journalists have been replaced by journolists?

We noted, in two different stories, that while all of the other Lexington media sources published the picture of Juanyah Clay, who was being sought in the murder of 26-year-old Bryan D. Greene, whose body police found at the Eastridge Apartments on Alumni Drive on January 30th. The first linked story concerned the police looking for Mr Clay, so the publication of his photo could only have helped the police find him.

We also noted that in both of the earlier stories in the Lexington Herald-Leader included stock photos of the police stringing crime scene tape around an unspecified area, so the failure to use Mr Clay’s photo, which was freely available at the Lexington city government’s page as well as the Police Department’s Facebook page. Thus, it was not a matter of the newspaper having to pay someone for the photo.

And today, we have this:

Detectives detail multiple cases against Lexington man charged in Alumni Drive murder

By Morgan Eads | April 15, 2021 | 12:31 PM

At a court hearing Thursday morning, two detectives and a jail employee discussed the various charges against a man accused of shooting and killing a 26-year-old after he was already wanted for cutting off an ankle monitor while on conditional release in a different criminal case.

Juanyah J. Clay, 19, was arrested in March and charged with murder in the death of 26-year-old Bryan Greene, according to police.

Greene’s body was found on the night of Jan. 30 after someone spotted a large amount of blood outside an apartment at 2800 Alumni Drive, Lexington police detective Jeremy Atkins testified at the preliminary hearing Thursday. When police went inside the apartment they found Greene dead of what appeared to be multiple gunshot wounds.

Further down we find:

Clay was arrested on March 30 at a hotel on E. Lowery Lane, Lexington police detective Keith McKinney testified. He was found to have $1,020 in small bills, three concealed loaded firearms and unknown pills on his person, and a digital scale and marijuana was found in the room he was exiting, McKinney said. In addition to the charge of murder, Clay is facing two charges of drug trafficking and one charge of concealing a deadly weapon.

After his arrest, Clay admitted to Atkins that he shot Greene, Atkins testified. Clay also stated that another person was present at the time of Greene’s death, and that that person has since died. While Atkins did not testify to how that person died, he said that the person’s name was Markel Allen, which is the name of a 17-year-old who was shot and killed in Lexington on Feb. 17. That case is still under investigation.

At the time of Greene’s death, Clay had an arrest warrant out for violating the conditions of his release as he awaited trial on a separate burglary charge, according to court records. An employee of the Fayette County Detention Center testified Thursday that Clay was placed on an ankle monitor in May of 2020. He’s accused of cutting that ankle monitor off in June 2020 and throwing it out the window of a vehicle in Lexington, the jail employee testified.

Sounds like a bad dude! He was in possession of illegal drugs and the paraphernalia for selling it, and three concealed, loaded weapons, all while he was on the lam for a burglary trial.

But here’s the part that gets me. The Herald-Leader included this video in today’s story:

Underneath was the caption:

Lexington Police Chief Lawrence Weathers urged people with information regarding homicide investigations to speak with police. He said some witnesses don’t cooperate with police investigations, making it more difficult to identify suspects. By Jeremy Chisenhall

Jeremy Chisenhall was the writer of the first two stories, the ones referenced in my previous articles.

Now, if the Herald-Leader is going to post the video of Police Chief Lawrence Weathers urging people to come forward, why wouldn’t the paper publish the suspect’s photo, particularly when the suspect was at large, and information from the public could have proven helpful in finding him?

I do not know the newspaper’s policy on this, and when I tried to contact both Morgan Eads, who wrote today’s story, and Mr Chisenhall, who wrote the previous two, neither was available by telephone.

So, I will go back to my previous speculation of March 30th: if the newspaper’s website had enough bandwidth available for a generic crime story photo, why didn’t the Herald-Leader include Mr Clay’s photo instead? Wouldn’t Mr Clay’s photograph be much more useful to people who might just happen to see him on the streets than a picture of crime scene tape?

That’s the big question, why? And being the very politically incorrect observer of media bias that I am, one answer springs immediately to mind. Having written about the horrible damage the #woke and #BlackLivesMatter activists have done in the newsrooms of The New York Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer, I instantly thought: to have published the photo of a murder suspect who happens to be black might be seen as racist by the reporter or his editors.

Is there another explanation for this egregious failure of journalism? If there is, it hasn’t occurred to me. Perhaps someone else can give me a better answer, but right now, I’m calling it the way I see it: the newspaper cares more about political correctness than it does journalism. Journolism over journalism, perhaps?

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Is it time to change the spelling of ‘journalist’ to ‘journolist’? The Associated Press and The Philadelphia Inquirer try to deify Daunte Wright

Sometimes it’s easier just to embed a few of my tweets than write a separate article/ Because of the way Twitter does embedding, I had to embed the second and fourth tweets to let readers see the whole thing.

We are supposed to thing that Daunte Wright was just an ever-so-nice young man, and the woman who was copulating with George Floyd, another criminal, a convicted felon and serious drug abuser, told us that young Mr Wright was just “a wonderful, beautiful boy.”

No, he wasn’t. According to the Associated Press story:

According to court records, Wright was being sought after failing to appear in court on charges that he fled from officers and possessed a gun without a permit during an encounter with Minneapolis police in June.

A search of court records shows Wright had a minor criminal record, with petty misdemeanor convictions for possession/sale of a small amount of marijuana and disorderly conduct.

So, resisting arrest and escaping, both criminal acts.

What Is Resisting Arrest?

Resisting arrest in Minnesota is also called obstructing legal process, arrest, or firefighting. A person is guilty of obstructing legal process if they intentionally obstruct, resist, or interfere with a police officer in the performance of legal duties, or obstruct, hinder, or prevent a person’s apprehension on a criminal charge.

The Minnesota legislature intentionally wrote the law in very broad terms. Under the law, resisting arrest means:

  • Refusing to be handcuffed;
  • Refusing to surrender;
  • Struggling with the police;
  • Wrestling or fighting with the police; or
  • Somehow preventing the police from making an arrest.

Acts such as running from police, refusing to stop for police, and escape from a detention facility are crimes governed by other Minnesota laws.

Penalties For Resisting Arrest In Minnesota

The possible sanctions for resisting depend on the severity and dangerousness of the conduct alleged by police. Minnesota law punishes resisting arrest as a felony if:

  • The person knew or should have known the act created a risk of death, substantial bodily harm, or significant damage to property; or
  • The act did cause death, serious bodily injury, or substantial property damage.

Felony resisting arrest carries a maximum state prison term of five years, a fine up to $10,000, or both fine and imprisonment.

Resisting arrest is a gross misdemeanor punishable by no more than one year in prison, a $3,000 fine, or both if the act or threat was forceful or violent but did not cause death, substantial bodily injury, or substantial property damage. Otherwise, misdemeanor resisting arrest carries a maximum sentence of 90 days, a $1,000 fine, or both.

Also see: Nothing Can Placate the BLM Riot Mob, and ‘Journalists’ Are Part of the Mob

Escaping from the police on an attempted arrest can be a felony in Minnesota if the escapee flees in a car, or a misdemeanor if he escapes on foot.

In Minnesota, you are required to have a valid permit to carry in order to possess a handgun in a public place. The penalties for carrying a handgun without a valid permit are strict. For a first offense it is a gross-misdemeanor and any repeat offense becomes a felony. It is your burden to prove that you have a valid permit to carry when requested by law enforcement.

It seems that this “wonderful, beautiful boy” had racked up some previous charges, and that’s why there was a warrant out for his arrest.

The officer who shot and killed Mr Wilson has resigned and is facing criminal charges; she may well be convicted, and it’s difficult to believe that she mistook her service weapon for her taser. But the credentialed media are hyping up the notion that Mr Wright was some kind of sweet, innocent kid. At some point, we need to be honest here and change the spelling of journalist to journolist.