Tag Archives: #Journolism

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Journolism: ignoring the “Five Ws + H” in reporting due to political correctness

Despite having spent two years on the staff of the Kentucky Kernel, the University of Kentucky’s student newspaper, I was never a journalism major. That does not mean that I have been completely uneducated on reporting and newswriting, though I must say that newswriting under 2022 standards is nothing like it was in the 1970s.

One of the most basic journalism standards is the “Five Ws,” frequently referred to as the “Five Ws + H.” It’s pretty simple: “who, what, when, where, and why,” with the addition of “how”. Who is involved, what happened, when and where did it happen, why did it happen, and how did it happen. These are the things for which every responsible editor looks, and will come back to the reporter or newswriter — not always the same person — if one of them is missing.

Sometimes, especially with a breaking news story, one or more of those “Ws” is simply unknown, and deadlines being what they were, and are, a story will get rushed to publication while missing one of the six important points. In most such cases, there will be a note at the end to the effect of “This is a breaking story and will be updated.” With the advent of digital publication, where newspapers have online versions, this can be fairly frequent, as newspaper editors, in competition with television and internet media, don’t want to sit on a story.

Which brings me back to something I covered Thursday evening, the decision of the Cherokee County School Board to not play the Highlands School girls’ volleyball team. Several credentialed media sources covered the story, and they gave us the “who”, the Cherokee County School Board, the “what”, the decision to forfeit all scheduled games with Highlands, the “when”, Thursday, September 21st, the “where,” the Cherokee County School Board meeting, and the “why,” because a “Hiwassee Dam High School volleyball player got neck and head injuries when a Highlands athlete spiked a ball”.

Except, as it happens, the credentialed media sources all censored part of the “why.”

Volleyball players spike the ball! They all try to spike the ball, to deliver a shot against the opponent with such speed and force that the defense cannot react quickly enough to prevent the ball from hitting the ground inbounds. That a player in a (supposedly) non-contact sport was injured by a spiked ball is infrequent, but certainly not unheard of.

If you read only the credentialed media stories, you might be scratching your head, wondering why the School Board would take such a decision, against one player on one team. Spiking the ball is, after all, part of the game, and if the Board were concerned that a spiked ball injured a player, and that somehow made the game unsafe, then a reader might wonder why the Board didn’t simply cancel all girls’ volleyball games, with all opponents.

And that’s the part of the “why” the credentialed media censored: the Highlands School girls’ volleyball player that so forcefully spiked the ball isn’t a girl! The unnamed-in-the-media player is a boy who “identifies” as a girl, and that’s why the Cherokee County Board of Education took the decision the way they did. The report from the Cherokee County Board of Education is here.

The Board’s report noted:

Mr. Jason Murphy stated to the Board that he hoped they voted on this issue based on their morals, ethics and Christian upbringing.

In other words, there was a political and religious aspect to the Board’s decision, as raised in the meeting, and it is at least possible, though the Board denied it, that political and religious considerations influenced the decision. Surely that would be a newsworthy part of the “why” of the decision.

Ms. Jordan Lovingood asked the Board to consider how their decision will affect the Highlands’ player this decision is being made about. She stressed how we are teaching inclusion and acceptance in our schools, yet making a decision to not play a team based on sex.

(Board member) Mr. (Joe) Wood commented that no one is basing their decision on sex; it’s based on safety.

This would normally be a very contentious point, yet the credentialed media completely ignored all of it, because to have included it in their stories would have been to inform readers that the player in question is not, to use a phrase in the Board’s report, “100% girl”.

I frequently use the word “journolism”, the spelling of which comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their objectivity. Perhaps some would find that unfair, but what better reflects when (purported) journalists ignore the basic principles of reporting and newswriting in order to protect the political position that ‘transgender’ girls are real girls?

The credentialed media got really, really upset when they were accused of #FakeNews, but what else would you call it when the media censor the news in the way they did in this story? If the media aren’t trusted, this is just part of the reason why.

I found out about this story not through the credentialed media, but due to definitely biased bloggers, and I put some effort into searching out confirmation of this through the credentialed media; it took the link to the Board of Education’s report of the meeting, in the Washington Examiner, certainly a conservatively biased source, to gain unbiased confirmation. But when biased bloggers report the whole story, while the professional media will not, there’s something wrong with our professional media.

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Journolism: media bias at its finest The credentialed media didn't publish anything untrue, but they deliberately chose to omit the most important fact

No, there isn’t a typographical error in the article headline. 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.

Sometimes that bias is deeply buried, and at first, I wondered if this was a hoax, because I wasn’t finding any credentialed media verification of the story. But finally, I found it from an ABC News station:

After player injury, Cherokee Co. schools forfeit all volleyball games against 1 school

by Jordan Karnbach | Tuesday, October 4, 2022

CHEROKEEE COUNTY, N.C. — All girls’ volleyball teams in the Cherokee County school district will forfeit upcoming regular season games against one competitor due to a recent player injury, according to Cherokee County School Board member Arnold Mathews.

Mathews told us in an email on Tuesday that the board determined the varsity and junior varsity teams in the district won’t play the Highlands School volleyball team “due to safety concerns,” Mathews said.

That decision came after a Hiwassee Dam High School volleyball player got neck and head injuries when a Highlands athlete spiked a ball, which “forcefully struck” the athlete in the head, says Mathews.

Mathews says this decision does not affect any other sports or teams in the district.

You know what isn’t in any of the credentialed media reports? What isn’t there is that the ball which was forcefully spiked was spiked by a ‘transgender girl’, meaning: a male who identifies as a girl and is playing on the girls’ volleyball team.

Several non-credentialed sites picked up that part, and it took some digging through them to find the confirmation. There was considerable debate among the Cherokee County Board of Education meeting, but if you read through the meeting minutes, you’ll see what the credentialed media tried to hide: yes, the player in question is a “biological male”.

Dr. Lisa Fletcher, Principal Murphy High, informed the Board that at the athletic association meeting she had just attended the issue of student’s playing based on their birth certificate gender is going to be addressed in the future. She advised the Board to communicate with the Athletic Association regarding this issue.

Mr. Steve Colemen addressed the safety concern for the female players facing a biological male player. He added that the Board should make a stand because if it isn’t addressed now, it’s possible in the future that a Cherokee County team could face a team with all biological males playing; and if this isn’t addressed there is a risk for biological male students taking over women’s sports.

The Board of Education clearly took its decision based on the fact that the Highlands girls’ volleyball team had a male team member; that ought to be news, ought to be an important part of the story, and is the “why” for the entire decision, but the credentialed media have censored that part. The credentialed media didn’t publish anything untrue, but they skewed the entire story by deliberately omitting the most important, most relevant fact. How is that not lying?

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Bad causes attract bad people

In The First Street Journal’s Stylebook, we note:

Those who claim to be transgender will be referred to with the honorific and pronouns appropriate to the sex of their birth; the site owner does not agree with the cockamamie notion that anyone can simply ‘identify’ with a sex which is not his own, nor that any medical ‘treatment’ or surgery can change a person’s natural sex; all that it can do is physically mutilate a person.

Sadly, the credentialed media do not follow the same rule. Rather, they almost uniformly refer to the ‘transgendered’ by the names and sex they claim to be, rather than doing something really radical like telling the truth.

My good friend Robert Stacy McCain had the story of Steven Joaquin Perez, a man male who believes he is a woman and who calls himself “Zhoie”. Mr McCain concentrated on Mr Perez’s actions in trying to provoke law enforcement and security personnel to take action against him, as a “first amendment auditor,” comparting such to “sovereign citizens,” people who believe that they are completely independent of what they see as a corrupt government. I encourage you to read Mr McCain’s original on that part.

Me? I’m more interested in the complicity of the credentialed media in perpetuating the lie that girls can be boys and boys can be girls. Mr McCain likes to link an archived version of his sources, to help people get past paywalls, and I saw the archived version of the story here. I went to the original.

Guard won’t be charged in shooting of YouTube activist ‘Furry Potato.’ She’s suing him

by James Quelly | March 13, 2019 | 6:25 PM PDT

Zhoie Perez, second from right, speaks during a news conference in downtown Los Angeles. (Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times). Caption is a direct quote from The Los Angeles Times. Click to enlarge.

Los Angeles prosecutors Wednesday declined to file criminal charges against a security guard who shot and wounded a YouTube personality during a bizarre clash outside a synagogue last month, an announcement that came just hours after the woman filed a civil lawsuit against the guard and his employers.Edduin Zelayagrunfeld, 44, was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon Feb. 14 after shooting 45-year-old Zhoie Perez while she was filming outside the Etz Jacob Congregation/Ohel Chana High School building in the Fairfax district.

Prosecutors had asked the LAPD to conduct a deeper investigation into the incident before they made a filing decision, but they formally rejected the charges Wednesday. In a declination memorandum, Deputy Dist. Atty. John Harlan wrote that prosecutors ultimately would not be able to disprove Zelayagrunfeld was acting in self-defense.

There’s more at the original.

I went to the original for the specific purpose of counting how many times the Times referred to Mr Perez as though he was a woman. The word “woman” is used once to refer to him, and the feminine pronouns are used — assuming I counted them correctly — fifteen times. The article does note that he is “transgender” once, but does not tell us Mr Perez’s real name; I only know it because Mr McCain had looked it up and posted it.

Look at the photo that the Times used. Even Stevie Wonder could see that Mr Perez isn’t a woman, but the Times called him one uncritically. A different photo used my Mr McCain doesn’t really indicate Mr Perez’s height in the same manner, but reveals a clearly masculine face. Every bird, every reptile, and every mammal can tell the difference between males and females of their own species, and my observations are that dogs and cats, at the very least, can distinguish between the sexes of human beings, but somehow the left, including our credentialed media, have lost that very fundamental ability.

It has been said that bad causes attract bad people, and Mr Perez is simply another example of it. He went to a synagogue to deliberately provoke a fight, and he succeeded. One would think that someone who is ‘transgendered’ would want to live a relatively quiet life, in the hopes of getting his circle of friends to see him as a real woman, rather than have publicity demonstrating to the entire country that no, he ain’t a real woman, but a complete kook. The “first amendment auditors” are certainly right that they do have rights, but going about proving it by trampling on other people’s rights, and trying to provoke confrontation is not exactly a way to win friends and influence people, or at least not to influence people to support them.

And if bad causes attract bad people, then the reverse is also true: if you see a bad person, look at the causes he supports a bit more closely, and you’re very likely to find those political causes he supports aren’t all that great.

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The Philadelphia Inquirer really, really hates cops!

I suppose that I shouldn’t have been surprised. On Tuesday, October 11th, the day that the Philadelphia Police Department reported that 423 people had been murdered in the City of Brotherly Love, the website home page of The Philadelphia Inquirer had, in their “Philly Tips” section, “How to file a complaint against a Philly police officer”.

No, I am not including the link, and yes, perhaps I should have taken a larger screenshot of the main page to document its location better, but it’s really not surprising that the very #woke[1]From Wikipedia: Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from … Continue reading Inquirer would have something like that.

Of course, the Inky was doubtlessly distraught because the George Soros-sponsored, police-hating defense lawyer who became District Attorney, Larry Krasner — whom the Inky endorsed for re-election — and his minions had totally bungled a murder case against a city police officer:

A Philly judge threw out all charges in the murder case against former police officer Ryan Pownall

Common Pleas Court Judge Barbara A. McDermott ruled that prosecutors years ago had failed to provide sufficient legal instructions to a grand jury as it weighed whether or not to charge Pownall.

by Chris Palmer | Tuesday, October 11, 2022

A Philadelphia judge dismissed all charges Tuesday against former city police officer Ryan Pownall, ruling that prosecutors had failed years ago to provide proper legal instructions to a grand jury as it weighed whether to charge him with murder in a 2017 on-duty shooting.

Common Pleas Court Judge Barbara A. McDermott said there were “so many things wrong” with how the District Attorney’s Office instructed grand jurors before they approved a presentment recommending murder charges in the landmark case.

In particular, McDermott said during a pretrial hearing, prosecutors had failed to provide the panel with information on how and when officers are legally justified in firing their weapons. “How could the grand jury do [its] job without knowing that?” she asked.

She chastised prosecutors for what she viewed as a series of other errors, saying that if a defense attorney had behaved in a similar fashion before her, “I would declare them incompetent.”

There’s more at the link, but Big Trial Blog has the story in more detail, by a writer who actually knows what he’s doing:

Clown Show: Judge Tosses D.A.’s Faulty Murder Case Against Cop

by Ralph Cipriano | Tuesday, October 11, 2022

The clown show that is the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office was fully exposed this afternoon in the courtroom of Common Pleas Court Judge Barbara McDermott.

At the end of a more than two-hour hearing, McDermott ruled that the D.A.’s Aug. 23, 2018 grand jury indictment of former police officer Ryan Pownall for murder was riddled with so many legal errors that she was quashing the grand jury’s report, known as a presentment because it was “no good” and it’s “conclusions cannot be relied on.”

What was so wrong with the grand jury presentment that charged Pownall for murder in the racially-charged 2017 shooting death of dirt biker David Jones?

Well for starters, the grand jury was run by former Assistant District Attorney Tracy Tripp, who, depending upon your viewpoint, was either [a] totally incompetent or [b] corrupt, or [c], the correct answer, both totally incompetent and corrupt.

In the Pownall case, Krasner, who had just taken office in January 2018, was looking for the first cop he could publicly hang for murder. And that happened to be Ryan Pownall, who fatally shot Jones, who was armed and on the run, while attempting to escape arrest.

For Krasner, the scheming arsonist, it was a perfect case for making headlines because Pownall was white and Jones was black. But the problem was that Krasner’s office is so lame and inept that Krasner relied on Tripp to do the job. And operating behind the closed doors of the grand jury, the rookie prosecutor completely botched the hit.

For Tripp, a former public defender who joined Krasner’s office in February, 2018, running the Pownall grand jury was [a] her first grand jury investigation and [b] her first murder case.

The only qualification that Tripp the novice prosecutor had to be a running a grand jury investigation of a former cop for murder was that she was a true believer like Krasner, the progressive reformer who hates cops, and wanted to nail one of them for murder.

There’s a lot more at the original, and I’d really like to quote it all, but that would be a copyright violation. But, not to worry, unlike what I have often called The Philadelphia Enquirer[2]RedState writer Mike Miller called it the Enquirer, probably by mistake, so I didn’t originate it, but, reminiscent of the National Enquirer as it is, I thought it very apt., the Big Trial blog is not behind a paywall.

Mr Cipriano continues on to list not one, but several errors, not only by ADA Tripp, but the current Assistant District Attorneys at the hearing, Vince Corrigan and Lyandra Retacco, performed poorly in trying to salvage the case. Of course, when you are trying to defend and salvage incompetence, it’s difficult to look coherent yourself.

It was so bad that not even Chris Palmer, one of Krasner’s dedicated apologists at The Philadelphia Inquirer, could fully clean up the mess in a late developing story that the Inky promptly ushered off the front page of its newly designed website.

ADAs Corrigan and Retacco let it be known that Mr Krasner’s office would attempt to recharge Mr Pownell, at which point the judge warned them that they had better give him a preliminary hearing, another step they’d skipped the first time around.

I checked the Inky’s website Wednesday morning, and at least as of this writing, neither the Editorial Board nor any of the newspaper’s columnists had weighed in on the case.

The District Attorney wants the use of force statutes changed, because he loves going after policemen, far more than he likes going after the killers who have sent 424 Philadelphians to their deaths, but things haven’t worked out well for him:

The Philly DA’s Office will not appeal a recent ruling on police shootings to the U.S. Supreme Court

The decision potentially clears the way for former officer Ryan Pownall to be tried for murder this fall.

by Chris Palmer | Wednesday, August 10, 2022

Philadelphia prosecutors said Wednesday they do not plan to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review a recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of the state’s use-of-force law for police — potentially clearing the way for former city officer Ryan Pownall to be tried for murder this fall.

The decision, announced in court Wednesday, came several weeks after Pennsylvania’s high court rejected a challenge by District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office to the state statute governing how and when on-duty officers are permitted to use their weapons.

Prosecutors said they believed Pennsylvania’s law violates the state constitution and the Fourth Amendment because it permits officers to shoot fleeing suspects even if there is no threat of imminent death or serious injury.

But in a 4-2 decision last month, the high court said it believed Krasner’s office had chosen the wrong venue — Pownall’s trial — to try to upend a portion of the state criminal code, which is written by the legislature.

There’s more at the original, and yes, if you aren’t a subscriber to the Inquirer, there’s a paywall which restricts you to just a few free stories a month. I subscribe so that you needn’t. But, simply put, Mr Krasner does not want the police to be able to use deadly force to stop a fleeing suspect, even if that fleeing suspect is known to be armed and to have used his weapon. This is important, because the District Attorney wants to try former Officer Edsaul Mendoza, who shot fleeing Thomas Siderio, after young Mr Siderio had fired a shot at police, which caused a flying glass injury to another officer. Commissioner Danielle Outlaw discharged the officer, yet declined to name him, for his safety, but the Inquirer, hating cops the way they do, published his name, with Chris Palmer being one of the article authors. I saw that as the Inky trying to get Officer Mendoza killed.

Because Mr Mendoza has been charged with first degree murder, he is being held without bail.

So far, the Inky has not opined that the SWAT officers, three of whom were shot and wounded by a murder suspect Wednesday morning, should be charged with a crime for returning fire and killing the suspect, and the case is so obvious that even the editors of the Inquirer might just keep their keyboards quiet, but I wouldn’t be that surprised if they didn’t.

References

References
↑1 From Wikipedia:

Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from the African-American Vernacular English expression “stay woke“, whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues.
By the late 2010s, woke had been adopted as a more generic slang term broadly associated with left-wing politics and cultural issues (with the terms woke culture and woke politics also being used). It has been the subject of memes and ironic usage. Its widespread use since 2014 is a result of the Black Lives Matter movement.

I shall confess to sometimes “ironic usage” of the term. To put it bluntly, I think that the ‘woke’ are just boneheadedly stupid.

↑2 RedState writer Mike Miller called it the Enquirer, probably by mistake, so I didn’t originate it, but, reminiscent of the National Enquirer as it is, I thought it very apt.
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Larry Krasner and The Philadelphia Inquirer sure love them some propaganda!

We have previously mocked told our readers — both of them — that The Philadelphia Inquirer has informed us that:

In Philadelphia, there are no gangs in the traditional, nationally known sense. Instead, they are cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families. The groups have names — Young Bag Chasers, Penntown, Northside — and members carry an allegiance to each other, but they aren’t committing traditional organized crimes, like moving drugs, the way gangs did in the past.

Now, the District Attorney’s Office has told us that these are “street groups”.

Investigators believe that Johnson and Simmons targeted these young men because of their affiliation with a rival street group.

The left sure love them some propaganda!

Apparently, the way to end gangs is to redefine them away.

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More ‘journolism’ from the Lexington Herald-Leader

Brandi Whitaker, a former Madison County teacher, pleaded guilty to unlawful use of electronic device to induce a minor in 2017. She was given shock probation that same year. WKYT. Click to enlarge.

No, that’s not a typo in the headline: 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.

The Lexington Herald-Leader doesn’t like to publish photos of people accused of, or even convicted of, serious crimes, but they made an exception in the case of Brandi Whitaker, formerly a biology teacher at Madison Southern High School near Berea who allegedly had sex with a 16-year-old male student; Miss Whitaker pleaded guilty to an electronic communication charge, a Class D felony in Kentucky, and was sentenced to a year behind bars.

Part of a series that the newspaper carried on teachers who’ve had their licenses suspended, primarily for sexual abuse of students, was mentioned because Miss Whitaker received a “shock probation” in less than two months.

Man arrested, charged after shooting in downtown Lexington early Sunday morning

by Taylor Six | Sunday, October 2, 2022 | 2:10 PM EDT

A man is facing multiple charges after he was arrested in downtown Lexington following a shooting that sent a man to the hospital early Sunday morning.

Twenty-eight-year-old Adrian Black was arrested by Lexington Police after he allegedly shot a man near the Fifth-Third Pavilion and Cheapside, according to Sgt. Nate Williams.

Around 1:45 a.m. on Sunday, police working in the downtown entertainment area heard shots fired. The located a adult male victim with non-life threatening injuries.

According to Williams, police were able to locate Black who was leaving the scene in the immediate area.

Williams stated officers on the scene were told by witnesses that there was a physical altercation before the shooting between the suspects.

Adrian Black, photo by Fayette County Detention Center, and is a public record.

Adrian Marcel Black, born February 7, 1994, was not exactly unfamiliar to the Lexington Police Department, as the public record from the Fayette County Detention Center shows two previous mug shots of him, dated March 22, 2014 and June 11, 2019. He faces charges of:

  • KRS §508.060 Wanton Endangerment, First Degree, two counts, a Class D felony, which, under KRS §532.060 carries a sentence of one (1) to five (5) years in the state penitentiary.
  • KRS §508.010, Assault, First Degree, a Class B felony, which, under KRS §532.060 carries a sentence of no less than ten (10) to twenty (20) years in the state penitentiary.

The crimes of which Mr Black has been accused are serious ones, far more serious than that to which Miss Whitaker pleaded guilty, as measured by the fact she was convicted of a single Class D felony, while Mr Black faces a Class B felony charge, yet what my best friend used to call the Herald-Liberal chose not to print his photo, unlike the case with Miss Whitaker.

I might not have covered this, had the newspaper not published the photo of Miss Whitaker; that would have been consistent with their policy — a policy with which I disagree — of not publishing such photos. But they did publish Miss Whitaker’s photo, then returned to their standard operating procedure by not publishing Mr Black’s. Yet Mr Black, if he makes his $50,000 bail, is far more of a clear and present danger on the city’s streets than Miss Whitaker!

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The journolism of The Philadelphia Inquirer the stereotype of criminals being black is so strong in Philly that the newspaper not giving the race of criminal suspects simply reinforces it.

No, that’s not a typo in the headline. 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.

Also see: Robert Stacy McCain: A Death in ‘Killadelphia’

We have previously noted the murder of Everett Beauregard and mentioned the #WhitePrivilege shown by The Philadelphia Inquirer in reporting the story, how innocent white victims get stories in the Inky, while few black murder victims get anything reported about them.

Publisher Elizabeth ‘Lisa’ Hughes vowed to make what I have frequently called The Philadelphia Enquirer[1]RedState writer Mike Miller called it the Enquirer, probably by mistake, so I didn’t originate it, but, reminiscent of the National Enquirer as it is, I thought it very apt. an “anti-racist news organization,” and how it has led the newspaper to delete racial references to criminals, and, shazamm!, they’ve done it again.

Police say killing of recent Temple grad was ‘completely unprovoked,’ not a robbery

“Mr. Beauregard’s life was cut short by this horrific act of violence and for no apparent reason whatsoever,” said Homicide Capt. Jason Smith.

by Ellie Rushing | Friday, September 23, 2022

Philadelphia police said Friday they now believe the fatal shooting of a 23-year-old in West Philadelphia was “completely unprovoked,” and that the shooter did not interact with the victim before firing at his back.

“This was not a robbery attempt as we initially believed,” said Homicide Capt. Jason Smith.

Everett Beauregard had just exited a train at the 34th and Market SEPTA station around 12:30 a.m. Thursday, and was walking home after spending time with friends in South Philadelphia.

Meanwhile, police say, surveillance video shows a young man, with a gun concealed in his hoodie, had been walking around the area, near the 400 block of North 35th Street, for about an hour.

Video shows Beauregard walking past the suspect, who then suddenly turns around and fires multiple times at Beauregard’s back, striking him once in the back of the neck.

Beauregard fell to the ground, and the suspect ran away, firing one more shot as he fled.

Of course, the Philadelphia Police Department did not describe the killer as a “young man” in the surveillance video, but as “a thin built Black male”. Everyone in the city will automatically suspect that the killer is black, so it would not have hurt the Inquirer to give the actual description, even though it’s part of the video which they did link. Let’s tell the truth here: the stereotype of criminals being black is so strong in the City of Brotherly Love that the newspaper not giving the race of criminal suspects simply reinforces it.

The Inky tweeted, and Editor and Senior Vice President Gabriel Escobar said:

It’s official! We’ve got a new look ✨

But from our first edition on June 1, 1829, to The Philadelphia Inquirer you see today, our mission of providing essential local journalism has remained unchanged.

Apparently “essential local journalism” means censored local journalism! Why is telling the truth so hard?

References

References
↑1 RedState writer Mike Miller called it the Enquirer, probably by mistake, so I didn’t originate it, but, reminiscent of the National Enquirer as it is, I thought it very apt.
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Being taught about white privilege, by The Philadelphia Inquirer

Yup, I called it!

I’ve said it before: The Philadelphia Inquirer doesn’t care about homicides in the City of Brotherly Love unless the victim is an ‘innocent,’ someone already of some note, or a cute little white girl. I noted how the Inquirer covered the murder of Temple University student Samuel Collington, and I pointed out that, growing up poor as I did, #WhitePrivilege was not something I saw as real, but that the Inky taught me one heck of a lesson about it.

Thus, it was easy to predict that the Inquirer would cover the murder of this innocent Temple University graduate:

A recent Temple graduate was fatally shot in West Philadelphia in a potential robbery

Everett Beauregard, born and raised in Chester County, had just graduated from Temple in June and was working as an operations processor for Wells Fargo Bank.

by Ellie Rushing and Dylan Purcell | Thursday, September 22, 2022 | 4:24 PM EDT

Everett Beauregard, 23, was fatally shot in the Powelton section of Philadelphia in the early morning hours of Sept. 22 in what police are investigating as a robbery. Photo provided to The Philadelphia Inquirer by the Beauregard family. Click to enlarge.

A recent Temple University graduate was fatally shot early Thursday in the Powelton section of the city in what detectives are investigating as a robbery, police said.Just before 12:30 a.m., Everett Beauregard, 23, was shot once in the neck on the 400 block of North 35th Street. He was rushed by officers to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, but died a short time later, said Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore.

Vanore said detectives believe the shooting was part of a robbery — a crime that has risen starkly across the city in the last few years. He said police are in the early stages of pouring over video collected from the scene, and the investigation remains ongoing.

Beauregard, born and raised in Chester County, had just graduated from Temple in June and was working as an operations processor for Wells Fargo bank in Philadelphia, according to his LinkedIn. He was involved with political organizing for the area’s Democratic Party, and in 2018, interned for U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle.

There’s a good deal more about Mr Beauregard, and a long section noting how armed robberies have greatly increased in the City of Brotherly Love.

While the story in the Inquirer doesn’t mention it, notifications on Twitter tell us that Mr Beauregard was attempting to flee when he was shot. At near the intersection of North 35th and Spring Garden Streets, this isn’t the normal combat zone in Philly, but is near Drexel University.

It was only a couple of hours earlier that columnist Helen Ubiñas published this gem:

In Philly, every day is National Day of Remembrance for Murder Victims

As we approached a day meant for us to remember, I reached out to an ever-growing list of mothers whose stories I’ve yet to fully tell.

by Helen Ubiñas | Thursday, September 22, 2022

They remember. On the day that their loved ones were born, and on the day that they died.

They remember. As they release balloons into the sky, and place fresh flowers on well-kept graves.

They remember. In their private thoughts, in public displays, and, of course, on Sunday’s National Day of Remembrance for Murder Victims, a day to pay tribute to those lost, and also those left behind who will never forget.

As the day neared, I heard from mothers whose heartbreak I’ve long chronicled — those who’ve received some justice for the deaths of their loved ones, and even more who are still waiting.

It’s been six years since Yullio Robbins’ 28-year-old son, James Walke III, was shot and killed on a Germantown street in broad daylight.

Her son’s case recently took a bitter turn: She received a text from the detective who had committed himself to trying to solve Walke’s murder. After more than 30 years on the job, it was time for him to retire and turn the case over to another investigator. She wept at the news.

A few more paragraphs down:

In my own effort to make sure none of us forget, I regularly share many of the stories behind those numbers. But the truth is that I could share the story of a murder victim every day, in any given year, and still fail to scratch the surface of the collective toll that all of this pain has taken on our city.

Yes, I am a subscriber, who checks the Inquirer every day, but no, I don’t read Mrs Ubiñas’ column every time. She has, as we have previously noted, given us at least the names of some of Philly’s murder victims, but she also admitted that, for most of the dead, that was the most they’d get.

Not so for Mr Beauregard! He was a white guy, a Temple University graduate, and “was involved with political organizing for the area’s Democratic Party, and in 2018, interned for U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle.” He gets his picture in the paper, and he gets at least a brief bit of his life story told, because he wasn’t a drug addict in Kensington or a gang-banger in North Philly. Mrs Ubiñas may be mentioning some of the black victims and their families, as part of somewhat of a mission to make their stories better known, but the Inky in general is taking care of publicizing Mr Beauregard’s killing.

What do I see in the Inquirer, a newspaper which publisher Elizabeth Hughes vowed to make “an antiracist news organization”? I see that the paper paid more attention to the accidental killing of Jason Kutt, a white teenager shot at Nockamixon State Park, an hour outside of the city. That’s five separate stories, a whole lot more than the two or three paragraphs most victims get.

There was the murder of the previously mentioned Mr Collington, a white victim, allegedly murdered by a black juvenile in a botched robbery. The Inquirer then published 14 photographs from a vigil for Mr Collington, along with another story about him. Five separate stories about the case of a murdered white guy.

The Inquirer even broke precedent when it came to Mr Collington’s murder by including the name of the juvenile suspect in the case, and delving into his previous record.

Compared to the coverage the Inquirer gives concerning black victims, that’s some real white privilege there!

#BlackLivesMatter we are told, in all seriousness, and the Inquirer made a big deal out of a series of stories it called Black City, White Paper, when it comes to crime in the City of Brotherly Love, it mostly goes unmentioned, because those stories about black victims really shouldn’t be told, not to the very, very politically correct newspaper.

So, what lesson about white privilege has the nation’s third oldest continuously published daily newspaper taught me? It has taught me that if you’re an innocent white guy and you get murdered, the Inky will cover it, and it will be helpful if you family provide a nice, usable photograph as well. If you’re a black guy, well, too bad, so sad, die in obscurity.

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Once again, The Philadelphia Inquirer does not cover a story that doesn’t fit Teh Narrative.

We noted, on Friday, how administrators at Central Bucks West High School have instructed teachers to use the names and sex indicated on a student’s records in the office, rather than go along with a ‘transgendered’ student’s chosen name and ‘gender’, unless the student’s parents discuss with and approve the use of the student’s preferred name and ‘gender.’ Robert Stacy McCain was kind enough to reference the previous article on his fine site.

Obviously, I appreciate the link! But, you know who hasn’t had anything, anything at all, about the school’s action? That would be our nation’s third oldest continuously published daily newspaper, the winner of twenty Pulitzer Prizes, and the regions “newspaper of record,” The Philadelphia Inquirer. I searched for such a story on Friday, when I added my previous article, but found nothing. Then, on Sunday afternoon, at 8:54 PM EDT, I once again used the newspaper’s website search function to look for “Central Bucks”, and found absolutely zero on the school’s decision.

But I did find this, in the Opinion section:

I’m a trans teen in Central Bucks. Here, it doesn’t ‘get better.’

The district has become an increasingly more unwelcoming and unsafe place for marginalized students. We’re worried about what this 2022-23 school year will look like for us.

by Lily Freeman | Updated: Thursday, September 8, 2022

I’m 16, and just started 11th grade at Central Bucks High School East, part of the Central Bucks school district. I’m a daughter, a sister, a friend, an artist, an actor — a typical teen. And I happen to be trans.

I’ve spent my whole life in this district. I live with both my parents, I have two amazing sisters and an adorable dog, Scotch, all of whom inspire me every day to be my most authentic self. I feel lucky to have this support network, because I know that not every trans student does.

Now, discriminatory policies are being implemented in our schools, taking books off of shelves and further preventing students like me from receiving the support we need to thrive.

Over the summer months, the district passed a contentious library policy against books with “sexualized content” — which is often code for books that tackle issues of race or racism, or feature LGBTQ characters or plot lines. When I heard about the new books policy, which was approved in July, I wasn’t shocked or surprised. My family and I knew this was coming. We saw it happen around the country, even in a neighboring school district. My mom spoke about the dangers of book censorship in front of the House Oversight Committee back in April.

My family and I have been fighting for years to get the schools in Central Bucks to create a more accepting environment for marginalized kids, specifically educating around gender identity. Instead, we’ve seen the opposite happening — the district has become an increasingly unwelcoming and unsafe place for students like me. This is disappointing and scary, to say the least.

It would seem, then, if young Mr Freeman’s[1]In accordance with our Stylebook, The First Street Journal always refers to the ‘transgendered’ by their birth names, if known — and we have been unable to find “Lily” … Continue reading family have been “fighting for years to get the schools in Central Bucks to create a more accepting environment for marginalized kids,” that, were he a student at Central Bucks West, they’d agree to the student’s request to be called “Lily” and be referred to by the feminine pronouns.

There’s more at the original, but young Mr Freeman’s OpEd piece notes that he is a student at Central Bucks High School East, not West, and does not reference the Central Bucks High School West’s notice to staff.

Simply put, what I have frequently called The Philadelphia Enquirer[2]RedState writer Mike Miller called it the Enquirer, probably by mistake, so I didn’t originate it, but, reminiscent of the National Enquirer as it is, I thought it very apt. due to its biased journolism[3]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 … Continue reading apparently does not want its readers to know about the schools’ decisions, because they understand that a majority of readers would agree with the schools!

What, I have to ask, would young Mr Freeman see as “a more accepting environment for marginalized kids”? While it’s clear from the OpEd that his parents would agree to their son being called their daughter instead, would the Freeman family hold that other ‘transgender’ students should be referred to by the names and pronouns they prefer, even if their parents either disagreed or were not even informed that such was happening? Becky Cartee-Haring, an English teacher at Central Bucks West, said:

I physically felt sick in that meeting, listening to an administrator basically argue that we were going to protect ourselves by outting children . . . .

Translation: Mrs Cartee-Haring, who is already a legally-mandated reporter if it comes to suspected child or sexual abuse, believes that she has a right to withhold information about a child suffering from ‘gender dysphoria.’

In his OpEd, the writer stated that other students would make fun of him, that they said “all sorts of mean and harmful things,” was “harassed and threatened online,” and that he never felt safe other than when with “supportive teachers and friends.” And that leads to the obvious question: would the “more accepting environment” he seeks include requiring other students to use the names and pronouns he prefers, and to be punished in some manner if they did not?

Well, we don’t know how the junior at Central Bucks High School East would answer that question, because it wasn’t addressed in the OpEd, but we do know that the New York City Commission on Human Rights does require such, and can levy fines of up to $250,000 for violations. The city’s ordinance essentially tramples on the freedom of speech, and requires people who do not accept the notion of transgenderism to state things they believe to be lies.

Calling a boy a girl does not make him a girl, regardless of how much he may wish her were female. We can, and should, have some sympathy for those suffering from gender dysphoria, but having sympathy does not mean that we should just go along with their delusions.

References

References
↑1 In accordance with our Stylebook, The First Street Journal always refers to the ‘transgendered’ by their birth names, if known — and we have been unable to find “Lily” Freeman’s real name — and biological sex, though we do not change the direct quotes of others.
↑2 RedState writer Mike Miller called it the Enquirer, probably by mistake, so I didn’t originate it, but, reminiscent of the National Enquirer as it is, I thought it very apt.
↑3 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.