Tag Archives: #MediaBias

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And there they go again! The Lexington Herald-Leader publishes another photo of a white criminal suspect

It might not be quite as egregious as some others, because the man has some notoriety due to having been pardoned on a murder conviction, but there’s still the McClatchy Company’s policy on mugshots:

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.

As I have previously stated, despite several Google searches, using various permutations, I have not been able to find this policy in written form. I found this tweet:

and a photograph I have previously used from another tweet, along with the Sacramento Bee’s precursor article.

So, here’s the story:

Kentucky man pardoned by Matt Bevin for 2014 homicide is back in jail, held for Feds

By John Cheves | May 31, 2021 | 12:33 PM | Updated 1:30 PM EDT

Patrick Baker, left, who was pardoned by Gov. Matt Bevin in 2019 after a reckless homicide conviction, was back in jail on Monday on an unspecified federal charge. Photo by Marcus Dorsey, Lexington Herald-Leader. Click to enlarge.

Federal authorities have jailed a Kentucky man who received one of former Gov. Matt Bevin’s controversial pardons in December 2019.

Patrick Brian Baker, 43, was convicted of reckless homicide in the death of Donald Mills during a Knox County home invasion in 2014. However, Baker maintained his innocence and blamed law enforcement for overlooking an alternative suspect in the case. In his pardon, Bevin described the evidence against Baker as “sketchy at best.”

Baker had served two years of a 19-year sentence when Bevin set him free.

Baker’s brother and sister-in-law held a political fundraiser in 2018 that raised $21,500 for Bevin, according to the Kentucky Registry for Election Finance. The couple donated $4,000 to Bevin.

Baker, who now has a Frankfort address, was held in the Laurel County Detention Center on Monday as a federal prisoner, according to the jail’s website. Jail officials would not identify the criminal charge that Baker faced; they referred media calls to the U.S. Marshal’s office. But federal offices were closed Monday for Memorial Day.

There’s more at the original, but Mr Baker, having been pardoned by former Governor Bevin, is not a convicted criminal. He is in jail right now, which means that he is not an “urgent threat to the community, nor is he a public official, nor the suspect in a hate crime, nor a suspected serial killer, nor the suspect in a high-profile crime.

So, why did the Herald-Leader choose to publish his photograph?

Remember: under the McClatchy policy, the article reporter does not have the discretion to publish a ‘mugshot,’ though it could be argued that this particular photo isn’t a police mugshot. Rather, an editor has to give his approval, and that means:

  • Peter Baniak, Executive Editor and General Manager;
  • Deedra Lawhead, Deputy Editor, Digital;
  • Brian Simms, Deputy Editor, Presentation:, or
  • John Stamper, Deputy Editor, Accountability

So, who approved the publication, and why? None of the listed reasons editors should consider in taking the decision to publish have been met. The only unusual circumstance is former Governor Bevin’s pardon of Mr Baker, but that isn’t among the criteria specified by McClatchy. Attempting to embarrass Mr Bevin is something that would be high on the list of the newspaper’s priorities, but that isn’t a reason to publish Mr Baker’s photo.

One of us suspects that the photo was published because Mr Baker is white, and that it would not have been published were he not white. Perhaps the Herald-Leader could give us a different reason?

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Journolism: Newspapers don’t think their readers can handle the truth! Once again, the Lexington Herald-Leader gets racially selective in publishing mugshots

Have you ever heard of JournoList? It was an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, to facilitate communication between them across multiple newsrooms, the exposure of which called into question their objectivity. I use the term ‘journolism’ frequently when writing about media bias.

As we have previously noted, the McClatchy Company, which owns the Lexington Herald-Leader, has an explicit mugshot policy:

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.

As I have previously stated, despite several Google searches, using various permutations, I have not been able to find this policy in written form. I found this tweet:

and a photograph I have previously used from another tweet, along with the Sacramento Bee’s precursor article. Assistant Managing Editor Ryan Lillis wrote:

The Sacramento Bee announced Wednesday it will limit the publication of police booking photos, surveillance photos and videos of alleged crimes, and composite sketches of suspects provided by law enforcement agencies.

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.

McClatchy’s headquarters are located in the Sacramento Bee’s building.

And thus we return to the Herald-leader:

Eastern Kentucky man tries to run over a cop, flees police after being shot at

By Jeremy Chisenhall | May 28, 2021 | 8:13 AM

An Eastern Kentucky police officer shot at a suspect Thursday afternoon after the suspect allegedly tried to run the cop over, according to Kentucky State Police.

James Bussell, a 45-year-old from Owingsville, allegedly sped away from a Mount Sterling police officer during a traffic stop, made a U-turn and tried to run over the officer. The officer involved in the traffic stop fired his gun at Bussell, but didn’t hit him. The suspect made another U-turn and tried to run the cop over again, state police said.

After Bussell’s second attempt to run the officer over, his car got stuck, according to state police. He got out and fled on foot, state police said. The altercation didn’t result in any injuries, police said.

Clearly a bad dude. There’s more at the original, including this:

Well, how ’bout that? The Herald-Leader posted another photo, of a criminal suspect, this one coming from the Mt Starling, Kentucky, Police Department’s Facebook page.

Unlike the photos of Jessica Ahlbrand and Ronnie Helton,[1]The newspaper deleted Mr Helton’s mugshot from the article a couple of weeks after publication, by May 16. which the newspaper published, Mr Bussell is still on the loose. The text of the MSPD’s Facebook page and Jeremy Chisenhall’s newspaper article does not make clear that Mr Bussell fits as “an urgent threat to the community,” but he is charged with:

  1. Attempted Murder (Police Officer).
  2. Fleeing or Evading Police 1st Degree (Motor Vehicle).
  3. Wanton Endangerment 1st Degree (Police Officer).

Yeah, those are pretty serious, and I would not disagree with the assessment that Mr Bussell is a threat to the community. But so was Juanyah Jamal Clay, and the Herald-Leader declined to publish his mugshot when he was on the lam.

So, why did an editor approve of publishing Mr Bussell’s photos, but not Mr Clay’s? Mr Bussell is charged with attempted murder, while Mr Clay was wanted on an murder, not attempted murder, but actual murder charge. Why publish the mugshots of Miss Ahlbrand and Mr Helton, both of whom were in custody, but not Mr Clay, who was still on the loose?

Why? Despite my obviously brilliant mind, I am not a telepath, and cannot read the minds of Mr Chisenhall, or peter Baniak, Executive Editor and General Manager of the Herald-Leader, but, when I look at all of the photos of criminals and criminal suspects that the newspaper has published, it has been easy to notice one thing: all of the published mugshots I’ve seen have been of white suspects. Mr Lillis’ article noted that the Sacramento Bee was concerned about “perpetuating stereotypes about who commits crime in our community,” and that could fit in well with the pattern I have noticed in the Herald-Leader.

I am not the only person who has noticed!

We have noted previously Elizabeth Hughes, publisher of The Philadelphia Inquirer, and her determination to make her newspaper “an anti-racist news organization,” but has turned it into exactly that, a newspaper more concerned with racial identity and sorting out its news coverage that way than it has been about the “public’s right to know.”

The Society of Professional Journalists published their Code of Ethics; you should read it. It says, among other things, that “Journalists must be free of obligation to any interest other than the public’s right to know the truth.” This is exactly the opposite of McClatchy’s decision to suppress photographs of criminals and crime suspects because publication might cause “disproportionate harm” to one group or another, or what facially appears to be the Herald-Leader’s editorial decisions[2]Remember: an editor must approve all published mugshots. This is (supposedly) not left up to the various article authors. to skew the public’s perception by publishing only the photographs of white criminals and suspects.

It ought to be simple: just tell the truth, and be consistent in publication policies. If the editors are going to decide to publish photos of suspects who are still on the loose. publish photos of all suspects who are on the loose. Be journalists, and not journolists.

References

References
↑1 The newspaper deleted Mr Helton’s mugshot from the article a couple of weeks after publication, by May 16.
↑2 Remember: an editor must approve all published mugshots. This is (supposedly) not left up to the various article authors.
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The racism of The Philadelphia Inquirer The Publisher of the Inquirer says the paper is "an anti-racist news organization," but there's no actual evidence of that

I am not from Missouri, not from the “Show Me” State, and, to the best of my recollection, I’ve only passed through the place once, way back in August of 1972. Nevertheless, I am one of the people who likes to see something really radical, like actual evidence, of something before I accept it as true.

Thus, when I came to this OpEd piece by Elizabeth H. Hughes, the Publisher and Chief Executive Officer of The Philadelphia Inquirer, my truth detector sounded, loudly.

Inquirer publisher: One year later, reflection and a look ahead

A year after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the printing of a racist headline in The Inquirer, work remains left to achieve an equitable future for all.

By Elizabeth Hughes | May 26, 2021

June 2 will mark a year since The Philadelphia Inquirer published this racist headline: “Buildings Matter, Too.”

If printing those words in 72-point type had occurred in a vacuum, it would have been a grievous and unpardonable offense. That it was published at a moment of national reckoning over social justice — prompted by the vicious murder of George Floyd at the hands of the police a year ago yesterday — amplified the outrage and brought us well-deserved scorn and scrutiny.

There is somewhat of a playbook whenever a self-inflicted crisis like this threatens to define any institution and the people who work for it. And so it played out here. Apologies were issued, a change in newsroom leadership was announced, earnest promises of reform and redress were made.

Translation: Executive Editor and Senior Vice President Stan Wischnowski was forced to resign.

But what, exactly, was “racist” about the headline, “Buildings Matter, Too”? Philadelphia is an old city, founded in 1682 by William Penn, to serve as the capital for the Province of Pennsylvania, on a land grant from King Charles II. Boelson Cottage, built sometime between 1678 and 1684, is the oldest still standing house in Fairmont Park. Independence Hall was built in 1753, and is where both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States were debated and adopted. The city has an Historical Commission, dedicated to preserving Philadelphia’s rich history. Why, in a place like Philadelphia, would anyone think that buildings don’t matter?

Even buildings with far fewer, or even any, historic connection, serve important purposes, being places where people live and eat and work, things necessary to survival.

What did the “Buildings Matter, Too” article say?

Does the destruction of buildings matter when black Americans are being brazenly murdered in cold blood by police and vigilantes?

That’s the question that has been raging on the streets of Philadelphia, and across my architecture-centric social media feeds, over the last two days as a dark cloud of smoke spiraled up from Center City. What started as a poignant and peaceful protest in Dilworth Park on Saturday morning ended up in a frenzy of destruction by evening. Hardly any building on Walnut and Chestnut Streets was left unscathed, and two mid-19th century structures just east of Rittenhouse Square were gutted by fire.

Their chances of survival are slim, which means there could soon be a gaping hole in the heart of Philadelphia, in one of its most iconic and historic neighborhoods. And protesters moved on to West Philadelphia’s fragile 52nd Street shopping corridor, an important center of black life, where yet more property has been battered.

The very first line by Inquirer architecture writer Inga Saffron asked whether the destruction of buildings in the riots in the city after the killing of George Floyd mattered. She claimed that the anger of the protesters was justified, but also noted that yes, those buildings did matter, too.

“People over property” is great as a rhetorical slogan. But as a practical matter, the destruction of downtown buildings in Philadelphia — and in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and a dozen other American cities — is devastating for the future of cities. We know from the civil rights uprisings of the 1960s that the damage will ultimately end up hurting the very people the protests are meant to uplift. Just look at the black neighborhoods surrounding Ridge Avenue in Sharswood or along the western end of Cecil B. Moore Avenue. An incredible 56 years have passed since the Columbia Avenue riots swept through North Philadelphia, and yet those former shopping streets are graveyards of abandoned buildings. Residents still can’t get a supermarket to take a chance on their neighborhood.

The headline that Mr Wischnowski wrote was entirely appropriate for Miss Saffron’s column, because it expressed, succinctly, what was in the article. It noted that the destruction of these buildings was going to hurt Philadelphians, black and white alike, because damage and destruction was going to cost people their jobs.

More, it was catchy, in a way that editors are supposed to write headlines, to attract people actually to read the articles. That, however, was lost on the young #woke who populate the Inquirer’s newsroom.[1]A newsroom, I would note, that moved out of its own historic building almost a decade earlier, as the then Philadelphia Media Holdings sold the old building because the company was in poor financial … Continue reading

Back to Miss Hughes’ original:

But what has happened since? If our call then was to become an anti-racist news organization, what has been done? Has the passage of a year yielded anything concrete? Is there anything that adds real meaning to the lofty and ambitious goals announced over a few tense days when we faced the deserved public criticism?

The reader can follow the link to the Publisher’s original to see what she believes has been accomplished, but what I see is far, far different. According to the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page, as of the end of Monday, May 25th, 208 people had been murdered in the City of Brotherly Love. That works out to 1.434 people being murdered every single day, and, if that figure is maintained throughout 2021, 524 homicides for the year, leaving last year’s 499, and 1990’s record of 500, well back in the rear view mirror.

Two of those 208 deaths were reported as having occurred on May 25th, the anniversary of Mr Floyd’s death. Yet, at least at 10:42 AM on the following day, there was not a single story on the Inquirer’s website main page concerning those deaths. The seven killings the Police Department reported as having occurred over the weekend[2]The Philadelphia Police Department only updates that page Monday through Friday, so the previous update, showing 199 homicides, was for 11:59 PM EDT on Thursday, May 20th. did not rate a single story on the newspaper’s website main page. A site search for homicide turned up nothing, though searching for reporter Robert Moran, who usually covers these stories, turned up two very short news articles, covering one murder on the 24th and two separate murders on the 25th.

If I have to know which reporter to search to find these stories, how am I supposed to believe that #BlackLivesMatter, at least to the news staff of The Philadelphia Inquirer?

I am not the only person who has noticed this:

On Friday, December 11, 2020, Helen Ubiñas published an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer entitled “What do you know about the Philadelphians killed by guns this year? At least know their names.”

The last time we published the names of those lost to gun violence, in early July, nearly 200 people had been fatally shot in the city.

Just weeks before the end of 2020, that number doubled. More than 400 people gunned down.

By the time you read this, there will only be more.

Even in a “normal” year, most of their stories would never be told.

At best they’d be reduced to a handful of lines in a media alert:

“A 21-year-old Black male was shot one time in the head. He was transported to Temple University Hospital and was pronounced at 8:12 p.m. The scene is being held, no weapon recovered and no arrest.”

That’s it. An entire life ending in a paragraph that may never make the daily newspaper.

Of course, Miss Ubiñas followed the Inquirer’s stylebook in claiming that these Philadelphians were “killed by guns.” No, they were killed by bad people, people who used guns as their tools. But the Inquirer doesn’t want to ever say that part.

I’ve told the truth previously: unless the murder victim is someone already of note, or a cute little white girl, the editors of the Inquirer don’t care, because, to be bluntly honest about it, the murder of a young black man in Philadelphia is not news. Unless the victim was a Somebody, the Inquirer didn’t care. If the victim is a white male, not even in the city, and the shooting was probably accidental, yeah, that merits not just one but two stories.

If the Publisher of the Inquirer really wants the paper to be, as she put it, “an anti-racist news organization,” then she needs to see to it that the newspaper, and its website,[3]I am a digital subscriber to the Inquirer. There is no getting a paper copy out in the wilds of eastern Kentucky. actually covers the news, covers the killings, follows up on the murders, and tells the truth to its readers.

References

References
↑1 A newsroom, I would note, that moved out of its own historic building almost a decade earlier, as the then Philadelphia Media Holdings sold the old building because the company was in poor financial shape. Perhaps now working in the old Strawbridge’s building was less inspiring to the staff as far as architecture was concerned.
↑2 The Philadelphia Police Department only updates that page Monday through Friday, so the previous update, showing 199 homicides, was for 11:59 PM EDT on Thursday, May 20th.
↑3 I am a digital subscriber to the Inquirer. There is no getting a paper copy out in the wilds of eastern Kentucky.
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18th Century Technology: More devastation for print newspapers

As both of The First Street Journal’s regular readers know, I am old fashioned in that I like newspapers as my source of news. I started delivering the morning Lexington Herald and afternoon Lexington Leader when I was in the seventh grade. I use newspapers as my primary sources because, as a mostly conservative writer, using sources which are primarily liberal in orientation eliminates complaints about my choices of sources. And finally, because I am mostly deaf, television news doesn’t work well for me.

For me, the sad decline of newspapers is sad indeed, but, let’s face facts, they are, at heart, still 18th century technology.

Before I retired, I used to stop at the Turkey Hill in downtown Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, and pick up the newspaper to take to the plant. Liking a (supposedly) good newspaper, I bought The Philadelphia Inquirer rather than the Allentown Morning Call, which annoyed some of my drivers, because the Morning Call was the closest thing to a local paper, but hey, I was the one paying for it!

But, alas! like seemingly every newspaper, the Call had its financial problems, and, no longer independent, it became part of Tribune Publishing in 2000.

The Morning Call, rest of Tribune Publishing’s newspapers now owned by hedge fund Alden; CEO Jimenez is out

By Jon Harris | The Morning Call | May 25, 2021 | 5:44 PM EDT

The Morning Call, which has been covering the Lehigh Valley for more than 125 years, is now owned by the country’s second-largest newspaper owner: a New York hedge fund that has built its media empire — as well as a reputation for deep cost-cutting — in just over a decade.

Alden Global Capital late Monday completed its purchase of the roughly two-thirds of Tribune Publishing shares it didn’t already own, according to a flurry of filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Now privately held and under Alden’s umbrella are some of the country’s most storied newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun and the New York Daily News.

The swift closing of the deal came after Tribune shareholders on Friday voted in favor of the transaction, after a competing bid from a Maryland hotel magnate never quite came together. Alden’s deal to buy Tribune for $17.25 a share was announced Feb. 16, but the hedge fund had been interested in acquiring the company since at least fall 2019. In November 2019, Alden bought out Michael Ferro’s 25% stake in the company and quickly built its ownership position to more than 31%.

Douglas M. Arthur, managing director of Huber Research Partners, who tracks the publishing industry, told The Morning Call on Monday that he expects Alden to run Tribune with an emphasis on the company’s finances.

“The current Tribune operating story appears fairly similar to what I believe one should expect once Alden gains control: deep cost cuts, a maximum emphasis on generating cash flow and growing the bottom line,” he said. “The current Tribune management team has been operating this way for several years; certainly its efforts seem to have accelerated as Alden has wielded more influence.”

An immediate change came at the top of Tribune: CEO Terry Jimenez, who was the sole member of Tribune’s board to vote against the Alden deal, “was removed” from his position, according to a regulatory filing.

There’s more at the original.

Alden likes to sell off assets, but what of it? The Lexington Herald-Leader, a McClatchy Company newspaper, outsourced it’s printing to a Gannett facility outside of Louisville in August of 2016, and put it’s building on Midland Avenue up for sale; four years later, the Fayette County Schools decided to buy it. In April of this year, the Inquirer shut down its $299.5 million, in 1992 dollars, Schuylkill Printing Plant, selling the place for a measly $37 million to developer J. Brian O’Neill, outsourcing its printing to, of all places, New Jersey.

And the Morning Call had already done the same thing, selling its building last year. Alden is doing little more than other newspaper companies, because the newspaper business itself hasn’t figured out how to move into the 21st century.

While the article in the Morning Call was at least somewhat circumspect, The Philadelphia Inquirer, owned not by Tribune Publishing but the non-profit Lenfest Institute, fired with both barrels:

Allentown nonprofits rally to the defense of the Morning Call newsroom

Across the United States, Alden Global Capital has pursued a business model that involves cutting staff to the bone and selling real estate at the publications it acquires.

by Harold Brubaker | May 25, 2021

The news in late 2019 that Alden Global Capital, a New York investment firm known for slashing staff at its newspapers, bought a large stake in Tribune Publishing Co. spurred efforts in Baltimore, Chicago, Allentown, and in other cities to recruit local owners.

Now, Alden is expected to acquire complete control of Tribune on Tuesday, after winning shareholder approval Friday. Advocates for local ownership of Allentown’s Morning Call, which runs one of the largest newsrooms in Pennsylvania, say they plan to keep fighting to save their newspaper despite the odds stacked against them.

“We are all disgusted by the news of what happened and concerned about the future, but we’re not going to give up,” said Kim Schaffer, executive director of Community Bike Works, an Allentown nonprofit that works with youths.

A strong local paper is crucial to the group’s work, said Schaffer, who is among nonprofit leaders brought together by NewsGuild union leaders in Allentown to drum up support for local ownership. .  .  .

Across the United States, Alden Global, which owns about 100 newspapers though the MediaNews Group, has pursued a business model that involves cutting staff to the bone and selling real estate at the publications it acquires.

“They have earned this moniker of being vulture capitalists. We’ve seen in city after city how they absolutely drain the resources of these properties,” said David Boardman, dean of Temple University’s Klein College of Media and Communication.

“While they say many of the right things in terms of the importance of local news and their commitment to it, their record indicates absolute disregard for it,” said Boardman, who is also chair of the Lenfest Institute, which owns The Inquirer.

Alden acquired the Reading Eagle out of bankruptcy two years ago for $5 million. Employees had to reapply for their jobs as the company came out of bankruptcy with 111 jobs, down half from when it entered the process. Last year, Alden sold the Reading Eagle building in downtown Reading for $2.3 million.

I’m sorry, but is that a news report, or an editorial? When the Inquirer shut down its printing plant, 500 people lost their jobs. Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc, which owned both the Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, a tabloid ‘competitor,’ had 721 newsroom and editorial employees; by 2012, that was down to roughly 320. The Inquirer sold its building to developer Bart Blatstein, and most of the Philadelphia Media Network, then the owner of the Inquirer, Daily News, and philly.com, employees would be moved to the old Strawbridge’s department store on Market Street.

What Mr Brubaker, the article author detailed, was what the owners of the Inquirer had done almost a decade earlier.

I will admit it: I was very used to having grey smudged fingers from reading a print edition newspaper, but I’m also 68 years old. In 1990, the Inquirer had a print circulation of 511,000 on weekdays, and 996,000 for the Sunday edition. By 2019, that circulation was down by 80%. When my generation passes away, the last generation which was really used to print newspapers[1]Even I don’t read the print newspapers anymore. I live out in the sticks, and there are no newspapers delivered out here. All of my newspaper subscriptions are digital. will have gone to our eternal rewards, and where will print newspapers be then?

There should be a place for print media, even if those print media are online only. Television news, which seems to be doing well, simply does not do much in the way of in-depth coverage, something that print has, and can continue, to do. But my own preference for reading the news rather than watching it on television is pushed by my hearing impairment, and by my need, as a (struggling) writer to be able to copy-and-paste and continually review my sources. I can deride the consumers of television news as low-attention-span, but that isn’t quite fair; they are consuming what their abilities allow them to consume. But, whatever the solution to survival for newspapers in this country is, they haven’t found it yet.

References

References
↑1 Even I don’t read the print newspapers anymore. I live out in the sticks, and there are no newspapers delivered out here. All of my newspaper subscriptions are digital.
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Journolism and the public’s “right to know”: let sleeping dogs lie! There are things investigative journalists do not want to investigate!

It’s sunny and 86º F outside, and Mochi is like the rest of the critters: sacked out. Click to enlarge.

OK, OK, it’s been a slow day at the farm, and I’ve been lazy. Mochi is on the couch on the screened in porch! And letting sleeping dogs lie is pretty much what today’s journolists,[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 … Continue reading er, journalists do.

Well, being lazy, and having seen an episode of Roku’s Murder House Flip, I wasn’t online when my good friend Robert Stacy McCain threw me a bone and published this!

Leif Halvorsen: The Only Kind of Mugshot the SJW Media Will Let You See

By Robert Stacy McCain | May 22, 2021 |

Say hello to Leif Halvorsen, who was convicted for killing of three people in Kentucky “in a drug-fueled shooting rampage” in 1983. In order to fight “systemic racism,” the Social Justice Warriors who run the McClatchy newspaper cartel have developed a policy against publishing mugshots of criminals, because of the negative impact the publication of such mugshots allegedly has on “marginalized communities.”

Our blog buddy Dana Pico of First Street Journal notes that the McClatchy-owned Lexington Herald-Leader is apparently not adhering to company protocols, because they published Halvorsen’s mugshot in a story about convicted murderers in Kentucky who may be eligible for parole under a new state policy. To illustrate that story, the Herald-Leader published the mugshots of Halvorsen and four other convicted murderers who, perhaps not coincidentally, shared a certain trait with him. Can you guess what that trait was? I think you can.

There’s much more at Mr McCain’s original, but he added something I hadn’t considered:

Obviously, not every local media outlet has surrendered to the kind of SJW (Social Justice Warrior) mentality that now controls the Lexington Herald-Leader, but as someone who spent more than 20 years in the newspaper business, I must ask this: What happened to “the public’s right to know”?

This was the phrase used by journalists for many decades to defend such controversial decisions as publication of the “Pentagon Papers,” and many other practices. Journalists demanded access to public records (so-called “sunshine laws”) because what government did, in the name of the people, and with taxpayer dollars, ought to be publicly known.

Certainly in matters of law enforcement, the identities of people arrested by police are a matter of public record, as are the mug shots of suspects. No ethical journalist would willingly become complicit in a deliberate effort to conceal such information from the public.

But of course, the unethical SJWs of the McClatchy cartel do not consistently apply their policy of suppressing facts about crime.

Mr McCain was an actual professional journalist, starting at a small Southern newspaper and eventually working for the Washington Times. That pretty much leaves my two years with the Kentucky Kernel in the dust! And his point is spot on: journalists have been using that phrase for as long as I can remember. Consider McClatchy’s statement of policy:

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.

There is a powerful meaning that the executives at McClatchy want to hide, but can’t quite: if “inappropriate publication of mugshots disproportionately harms people of color,” it must mean at least one of two things:

  1. Either ‘people of color’ are arrested for the crimes they commit in a far greater percentage than are white people; or
  2. ‘People of color’ actually commit crimes at a far greater rate than do white people.

Logically, either 1 or 2 can be true, or both 1 and 2 can be true. But the only way that neither can be true is if the publication of mugshots does not disproportionately harm ‘people of color.’ Regardless of which, or both, are true, either one being true is something which ought to generate a whole lot of investigative journalism to find out why it is true.

The problem is that, as far as the executives at McClatchy, and journalists in general, are concerned, the belief is that number 2 is true. Oh, they want to believe that number 1 is the correct answer, which is why you see so many stories about police stopping cars driven by black Americans, but somehow that doesn’t explain why those stops have so frequently led to the discovery of illegally-possessed firearms or drugs.

The executives at McClatchy were quite blatant about it: publishing mugshots would harm communities of color because there would be a disproportionate number of mugshots depicting people of color. Today’s journalists do not want to investigate any of that, because they are afraid, deathly afraid, of the answers they would find. I noted, last year, in This is what Social Justice law enforcement gets us:

Simply put, (Larry) Krasner, who hated the police from the beginning, installed a form of ‘social justice’ law enforcement; he was tougher on the police than he was on criminals. He was oh-so-concerned that “disproportionately high numbers of minority males” were charged, convicted and incarcerated, without ever thinking to consider that perhaps, just perhaps, “disproportionately high numbers of minority males” were the ones committing crimes.

There are two kinds of crimes: crimes of evidence and crimes of reporting. If a man rapes a woman on the streets of Philadelphia, as far as the police are concerned, if it wasn’t reported, it didn’t happen. It is commonly assumed that most rapes go unreported, with some guesstimates being as high as 90% not reported. Crimes like robbery might go unreported if the victims do not trust the police or think it will do any good, or are fearful of revenge by the criminals. When your city is stuck with a District Attorney like Mr Krasner, who doesn’t believe in prosecuting criminals, or sentencing them harshly when they are prosecuted and convicted, what reason is there to report that you were robbed?

But murder is different: it is a crime of evidence. It isn’t easy to dispose of a dead body in a way that it won’t be found, especially if you haven’t carefully planned things. You’re looking at 100 to 300 pounds of dead meat, bone and fat, and something which will put off a strong and nasty odor after very little time. The vast majority of dead bodies get found.

I noted, just two days ago, that in St Louis, a city that is 45.3% black and 44.1% white, 68 out of the then-current 73 homicide victims were black, 53 males and 15 females, only three of the victims were white, and of the two known suspects, both were white. Out of the 34 identified suspects, 2 were white, 2 were Hispanic, and 30 were black. All thirty of the identified black suspects were accused of killing black victims.

The Social Justice Warriors simply have no answer for those raw, very raw, numbers. But one thing is certain: the executives at McClatchy don’t want you to know them. The editors of the Sacramento Bee, the newspaper at McClatchy’s headquarters, and the precursor to the McClatchy policy, put it more directly:

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.

Stereotypes exist for a reason; they exist because there is usually an element of truth behind them.

For McClatchy, for Peter Baniak, Editor and General Manager of the Herald-Leader, and for the newsroom at The Philadelphia Inquirer,[2]If I seem to harp on those two newspapers, it’s because I have paid for subscriptions to them, so I read them most often. any consideration of the “public’s right to know” has been overshadowed by their desire to manipulate public attitudes, by their desire that the public not hold stereotypes which just might be accurate. The last thing they want to do is the investigative journalism to determine why those stereotypes exist, and just how true they might be, because, deep down, they believe those stereotypes themselves. They are the ones who cannot handle the truth, and they are deathly fearful of what might happen if you knew the truth.

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 If I seem to harp on those two newspapers, it’s because I have paid for subscriptions to them, so I read them most often.
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LOL! Journolism strikes again at the Lexington Herald-Leader!

And here I wondered if the Lexington Herald-Leader ever paid any attention to my articles!

I noted, on April 23rd, 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. But the paper surprised me when they did publish such a photograph:

Kentucky man allegedly tried to kidnap 3-year-old boy, offered $1,000 to buy him

By Bill Estep | April 23, 2021 | 9:41 AM EDT

Ronnie L. Helton was charged in April 2021 with attempting to kidnap a child. Whitley County Detention Center. Photo copied to my site from the Herald-Leader.

A Kentucky man who allegedly tried to kidnap a 3-year-old boy as he played in the yard has been charged in federal court.

A grand jury indicted Ronnie L. Helton, of Corbin, Thursday on one charged of attempted kidnapping.

Helton, 73, was arrested on state charges hours after an April 7 incident in Corbin in which a woman named Kristy Baker told police a man had tried to take her grandchild.

Baker said the boy was playing on a trailer sitting next to a fence around her yard when a man parked across the street and walked over to the child, according to the citation in the case.

The photo of the suspect was posted on the Herald-Leader’s website in the original article; I saved that photo to my computer and my website. I notified, via Twitter, the Herald-Leader of my article, and my point:

Peter Baniak, notified in the tweet as @pbaniak, is the Editor of the newspaper.

Well, I had reason to check on the newspaper’s original article again today, and shazamm!, at least as of 5:36 PM EDT on Sunday, May 16, 2021, the mugshot of the suspect has disappeared. I did a Google search, to see if perhaps the charges had been dropped against Mr Helton, but found nothing to indicate that. Many other media outlets still had the suspect’s mugshot on their websites, but the Herald-Leader took it off of their site, and had done so rather recently.

This leads to a few obvious questions:

  • Why did the Herald-Leader post the suspect’s mugshot in the first place, when they had been previously declining to post police mugshots, including one of a suspect at large, one which the publication just might have aided the Lexington Police Department in his apprehension?
  • Who took the decision to publish this one suspect’s mugshot, despite the fact that the paper apparently did not do so normally?
  • Is the Herald-Leader’s apparent policy the newspaper’s own, or was this dictated by McClatchy?
  • Why did the paper wait at least several days to remove the mugshot after being notified of the departure from normal procedure?
  • Why, since the mugshot was available for several days, did the paper decide lately to remove it?

We have previously noted the newspaper’s editorial positions, and just how out-of-touch the editors are with their readership in central and eastern Kentucky.

The Herald-Leader is not the only media source in central and eastern Kentucky. In my previous articles on the newspaper’s declining to publish mugshots, I was usually able to get the photos from the websites of other Lexington media outlets. Those outlets, normally television stations, which are visually oriented, more complete information to their viewers than the newspaper is to its readers.[1]My subscription is digital only; I live so far out in the sticks that physical delivery of the print newspaper is not available.

Perhaps the editors of the newspaper have no choice; perhaps this was dictated to them by McClatchy. But the newspaper has transformed journalism into journolism, withholding information from its readers, for whatever reasons it has. This is not a good look.

References

References
↑1 My subscription is digital only; I live so far out in the sticks that physical delivery of the print newspaper is not available.
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The #woke really do hate them some Israelis! The left love the people who would kill them first

The Israelis made a huge mistake in 1967-68. When they conquered Gaza, the Sinai, Judea and Samaria, they should have decided, right then, that if they wanted to keep that territory, that they needed to round up and expel every last Arab living in those lands. It would have been harsh, it would have been brutal, and it would have been too reminiscent of the Nazis’ roundup of the Jews, but it would have settled things over fifty years ago. Israel would have the land they want, along with shortened, more defensible borders, while the Palestinians would be problems for Jordan and Syria, not Israel.

The world might not have liked it, the world might have shaken its collective finger in disapproval, but the world would have gotten used to it.

That they didn’t do. Rather, Israel decided to just make life tough on the Arabs living there, thinking that they’d all emigrate to Syria and Jordan and Egypt. That didn’t happen, and now hundreds of thousands of Arabs have turned into millions of Arabs. The Israelis are strong, tough, and smart, but they have proven to be piss poor conquerors.

So, now they are stuck with millions of Arabs who hate their guts, and don’t know what to do about them. The Israelis want the land in Judea and Samaria, and are slowly trying to colonize it, but that isn’t really going to work.

Arial Sharon ordered the Israeli evacuation of Gaza in 2005, turning the land over to the ‘Palestinians’ to do with what they would. The hope was that the Arabs would actually be responsible, and turn Gaza into a peaceful, self-governed Palestinian enclave. Gaza is on the resource-poor side, but it does have the best beaches in the Mediterranean. The Arabs could have built a tourist Mecca serving all of Europe, but, instead, they let their hatred of the Jews fester and flourish, and simply built a stronghold for Hamas.

So, every so often, Hamas shoot rockets into Israel, and Israel returns the favor, in kind and in spades. The majority of the Palestinian population are too f(ornicating) stupid to realize that all they are doing is setting up getting their own homes destroyed, and keeping themselves poor, by providing cover and support for Hamas. The Palestinians couldn’t turn Gaza into a peaceful, self-governed area because they are too stupid to do so, and have proven that for the past 15½ years.

You think the NYT isn’t liberal? This is a screen capture from today’s NYT webpage.

William Teach noted how the Grey Lady, The New York Times, believe we can control the Israelis through our tax dollars. In the land of the left, the Palestinians are the poor, down-trodden good guys while the Israelis are the big, bad bullies of the Middle East. If the Israelis were truly the big, bad bullies, they’d have done what I said they should have done in 1967.

The Biden administration has been timid and restrained, slowing the U.N. Security Council’s engagement on the issue, and it has yet to name an ambassador to Israel. But the stakes are too high for evasions, and President Biden should stand with others on the Security Council to demand a cease-fire before this escalates further.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken helpfully said “it’s vital now to de-escalate.” The administration should also express strong concern about the planned evictions of Palestinians that provoked the crisis. Dithering and vacillation help no one.

Nicholas Kristof, the column author, admitted that the United States have little influence on Hamas, but that our aid to Israel gives us more leverage, and he believes we should pressure the Israelis to back off. The notion that the US should be pressuring Hamas to stop shooting is regarded as silly.

Mr Teach pointed to another article:

Why won’t Israelis let themselves be killed?

The global woke loathing for Israel is taking an even darker turn.

by Brendan O’Neill | May 12, 2021

Two weeks ago Turkish forces launched a military assault in the Duhok region of Iraqi Kurdistan. Villagers were forced to ‘flee in terror’ from raining bombs. It was only the latest bombardment of the beleaguered Kurds by Turkey, NATO member and Western ally. It did not trend online. There were no noisy protests in London or New York. The Turks weren’t talked about in woke circles as crazed, bloodthirsty killers. Tweeters didn’t dream out loud about Turks burning in hell. The Onion didn’t do any close-to-the-bone satire about how Turkish soldiers just love killing children. No, the Duhok attack passed pretty much without comment.

But when Israel engages in military action, that’s a different story. Always. Every time. Anti-Israel fury in the West has intensified to an extraordinary degree following an escalation of violence in the Middle East in recent days. Protests were instant and inflammatory. Israeli flags were burned on the streets of London. Social media was awash with condemnation. ‘IDF Soldier Recounts Harrowing, Heroic War Story Of Killing 8-Month-Old Child’, tweeted The Onion, to tens of thousands of likes. Israel must be boycotted, isolated, cast out of the international community, leftists cried. Western politicians, including Keir Starmer, rushed to pass judgement. ‘What’s the difference?’, said a placard at a march in Washington, DC showing the Israeli flag next to the Nazi flag. The Jews are the Nazis now, you see. Ironic, isn’t it?

This is the question anti-Israel campaigners have never been able to answer: why do they treat Israel so differently to every other nation on Earth? Why is it child-killing bloodlust when Israel takes military action but not when Turkey or India do? Why must we rush to the streets to set light to the Israel flag but never the Saudi flag, despite Saudi Arabia’s unconscionable war on Yemen? Why is it only ‘wrong’ or at worst ‘horrific’ when Britain or America drop bombs in the Middle East but Nazism when Israel fires missiles into Gaza? Why do you merely oppose the military action of some states but you hate Israel, viscerally, publicly, loudly?

The judgement and treatment of Israel by a double standard is one of the most disturbing facets of global politics in the 21st century. That double standard has been glaringly evident over the past few days. Israel is now the only country on Earth that is expected to allow itself to be attacked. To sit back and do nothing as its citizens are pelted with rocks or rockets. How else do we explain so many people’s unwillingness to place the current events in any kind of context, including the context of an avowedly anti-Semitic Islamist movement – Hamas – firing hundreds of missiles into civilian areas in Israel? In this context, to rage solely against Israel, to curse its people and burn its flag because it has sent missiles to destroy Hamas’s firing positions in Gaza, is essentially to say: ‘Why won’t Israelis let themselves be killed?’

No other nation would be expected not to respond either to internal disarray – Hamas supporters have rioted in parts of Jerusalem and around Al-Aqsa Mosque – or to foreign attack. Imagine if the Isle of Wight was home to a movement whose founding constitution expressed loathing for all ethnic Britons and which regularly fired hundreds of missiles into Sussex, Kent, Hampshire. Wouldn’t the British military respond? Of course it would. But the woke demonisation of Israel is now so acute that Israel is expected to take the military assaults of the radical Islamists to its south. To Western activists who find the very existence of Israel abhorrent, any effort Israel makes to protect its borders or its citizens is an affront to global peace and decency. They cannot understand why Israel doesn’t hate itself as much as they hate it, and therefore will not allow itself to be punished by its righteous enemies. How dare you live?

The article is so good that I’d like to reprint the whole thing, but that would be plagiarism. But it doesn’t take much awareness at all to see how der Führer was able to get millions, tens of millions of Germans, and of Frenchmen and Ukrainians and Poles and Belgians and Czechs and others in lands they occupied to cooperate in the Shoah — the Israeli name for the Holocaust — in turning in Jews, in exposing Jews in hiding, in helping to put Jews into the railcars, in helping the Einsatzgruppen and the rest of the Schutzstaffel to guard and herd the Jews right into the gas chambers and the mass graves.[1]Three different Dutch have been suspected as being the informants who turned Anne Frank and her family over to the Nazis, but this has never been proven. The Jews are not allowed to defend themselves, don’t you know?

More, it explains how the British, one of the victors against the Third Reich, one of the countries which saw Dachau and Bergen-Belsen and Sobibor first hand, could have erected their own prison camps and set up their blockades, trying to keep the dispossessed Jewish survivors of the from leaving a blasted Europe, a Europe in which they had no homes, to immigrate back to their ancestral homelands in the Levant. The British Foreign Office, eager to retain what was left of their Empire after World War II, were friendly with the Arabs, and the oil under the Arab lands.

Max Boot, from his Twit pic.

As Mr O’Neill noted, the #woke hate them some Israelis, so much so that #NeverTrumper Max Boot, of Jewish descent himself, tries to blame the whole thing on, you guessed it, President Donald Trump, who helped get the ‘Abrahamic Accords’ between Israel and several Muslim nations signed, and who has been out of office for 3¾ months. But, then again, I never expect anything sensible from Mr Boot.

The silliness of the left when it comes to the Palestinians, to the Arabs in general, and to Muslims, is obvious. Israel is the only functioning democracy on the Middle East. Human rights? The left almost unanimously support homosexual and transgender rights, but try being homosexual in the Muslim-ruled nations: if you get caught, Da’ish will throw you to your death off a tall building, Iran will hang you, and other Islamic countries have their own punishments. Six countries, all majority Muslim, impose the death penalty for consensual same-sex sexual acts: Iran, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Sudan, and Somalia.

Women’s rights? Women are, to varying degrees, second-class citizens throughout the Middle East . . . except in Israel. Virtually nothing for which the American and Western left stand is supported in any Middle Eastern country except Israel.

Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev once said that the capitalists would sell the communists the rope by which the communists would hang them; in today’s left, “LGBT” groups support the Islamic groups which would, were they living under Islamic rule, throw them in jail, at the very least.

References

References
↑1 Three different Dutch have been suspected as being the informants who turned Anne Frank and her family over to the Nazis, but this has never been proven.
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Political correctness in the Lexington Herald-Leader and McClatchy

We have previously noted that the Lexington Herald-Leader apparently does not post photos of criminal suspects, — though an exception was recently made for a white suspect — even though the other city media do, and that McClatchy Company, which owns the Herald-Leader, apparently does not either. So, when I spotted the story below on the Herald-Leader’s website, I pretty much knew what I’d find:

Bartender attacked after woman complains drink wasn’t strong enough, Kentucky cops say

By Mike Stunson | May 11, 2021 | 12:58 PM | Updated May 11, 2021 | 6:48 PM

A bartender at a family-friendly Kentucky business needed extensive facial surgeries after being assaulted by a woman complaining about drinks, cops say.

The alleged assault happened April 2 outside Main Event, a popular entertainment center that features bowling and arcade games in Louisville, according to a citation.

Ciara Pardue, 24, ordered drinks from the business and later complained there was no alcohol in them, an arrest citation states. The bartender stated there was alcohol in the drinks and said a shot could be added for an additional price, police said.

Pardue angrily refused, and police said the bartender did not have more issues with the woman until later in the night.

The bartender went outside with two other employees for a smoke break around last call, and they were followed by Pardue and an accomplice, police say.

Ciara Pardue (Source: Louisville Metro Corrections)

The story continues to tell the reader that Miss Pardue’s “accomplice” repeatedly struck Rachel Hendricks, the bartender, and then Miss Pardue struck Miss Hendricks with an unspecified object. The Herald-Leader website reproduced Miss Hendricks Facebook posting, which shows her injuries, but, of course, did not post Miss Pardue’s mugshot. However, WDBR did, as did WAVE-TV. Judging from Miss Hendrick’s Facebook post on the incident, in which she wrote, “Hopefully these girls rot in jail for what they did,” the “accomplice” was also female.

Mike Stunson, who wrote the story, has a mcclatchy.com rather than a herald-leader.com email address.

So, why did the Lexington Herald-Leader put this story, out of Louisville, on its website? Louisville is out of the newspaper’s normal circulation area, though there are probably some kentucky.com subscribers in the Louisville area, because if there’s one thing the Herald-Leader does well, it’s cover University of Kentucky sports. Still, why cover the news if you aren’t going to cover the news?

The assault against Miss Henricks occurred at the beginning of April; the assault itself was no longer news. The news story was the arrest of Miss Pardue, but the Herald-Leader specifically, and, apparently, McClatchy in general, didn’t cover the entire thing, because censoring a mugshot is not covering the entire thing.

“The victim lost some eye sight in her right eye, which may never return, and numbness to her teeth and lip,” police said in the arrest citation.

Pardue was charged with first-degree assault Monday and was scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday.

“It’s just sad, sad that honestly my face will never be the same,” Hendricks wrote on Facebook a week after the incident. “I’ll have to get fillers in my face because fat won’t grow on top on the plates. I may never regain feeling in the front part of my mouth. And all this because of what? Because of a shot? because of a tip? Because someone was ‘too busy’ to come the first time they called for security? I want to place blame (and) I want answers to why this happened but I don’t think I’m going to get any. I’m just ready to put this behind me and get back to work and play with my kids like normal.”

Miss Pardue was charged with first degree assault, a Class B felony under KRS §508.010, which carries a sentence of “not less than ten (10) years nor more than twenty (20) years;” under KRS § 532.060. There’s no telling how much time she will stay in prison, or even if she will be convicted. If the evidence against her is strong enough, she’ll probably plead down to a lesser offense. But if the media publish her photo, wouldn’t that give Kentuckians a greater chance of recognizing her and maintaining their distance from her? Is not the McClatchy policy of not printing mugshots endangering the public?

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And another one bites the dust! Do black lives matter in Lexington?

There are no suspects yet, so I cannot fault the Lexington Herald-Leader for not posting their photos, but it does seem to be the newspaper’s policy specifically, and McClatchy Company’s policy in general, not to do so.

Teenager killed, two others injured in North Lexington shooting

By Karla Ward | May 8, 2021 07:57 PM EDT | Updated; May 9, 2021 | 10:20 AM EDT

Two men and a teen boy were taken to the hospital with serious injuries Saturday night after a shooting in a neighborhood off Georgetown Street.

The teenager, later identified as 17-year-old Mar’quevion Leach, died of his injuries at University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital, the Fayette County Coroner’s Office announced late Saturday.

Lexington police Lt. Chris Cooper said Saturday that officers were called to the 700 block of Florence Avenue just after 6 p.m. He said police received several calls about shots fired.

“Upon arrival, we did locate several individuals who had been injured by gunfire,” he said.

There’s a little more at the original.

Unless I’ve missed one, young Mr Leach would be the sixteenth person murdered in Lexington thus far this year. Saturday having been the 128th day of the year, that would put Lexington at one murder every eight days, assuming none of the other victims of what may have been a gun battle die. At that rate, Lexington would see 45 to 46 people murdered in 2021; the city set it’s records of 34 murders just last year, and that was four over the previous record of 30, set the year before.

Actually, 45 to 46 (the actual number is 45.625) is a better rate than just three weeks ago, when the city was on track for 51 homicides. But, if one of the other shooting victims succumbs, and becomes the 17th homicide victim, the projected total jumps to between 48 and 49 victims. A 17th would be fully half of 2020’s total, just 1/3 of the way through the year.

And the summer hasn’t started yet!

Do black lives matter in Lexington? It doesn’t really seem so, as young black men are being killed at record rates in a city which used to be fairly peaceful; I lived in the city from 1971 through 1984.[1]There is a Facebook page for a Mar’quevion Leach in Lexington, though the profile photo was posted ten years ago. I assume that this is the same person, as the name is fairly unusual.

The Herald-Leader reported that the police believe that the victims were “probably targeted.” At least to one person, Mr Leach’s black life didn’t matter, nor the lives of the other two victims.

References

References
↑1 There is a Facebook page for a Mar’quevion Leach in Lexington, though the profile photo was posted ten years ago. I assume that this is the same person, as the name is fairly unusual.