Tag Archives: #PhiladelphiaInquirer

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Why didn’t the press play its “adversarial role” when it came to Joe Biden?

Our regular readers — both of them — know that I am very much attached to the idea of print newspapers, despite them being slightly updated 18th century technology. I delivered newspapers as a teenager, and with my seriously degraded hearing, watching the news on television is difficult for me; even with close captioning, which is usually poor on live broadcasts, I can miss things. With the printed word, even though by printed I mean words on my computer monitor, not actual paper, I don’t miss much, and if there is a point on which I was confused, I can go back and read it again, to make certain I understood what was written.

So, quite naturally, I was reeled in by this story, that Rob Flaherty, the former deputy campaign manager for Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign, claimed there was “just no value” in candidates speaking to mainstream newspapers like The New York Times or Washington Post. Naturally, my mind went to the complaints by people like The Philadelphia Inquirer’s hard left columnist Will Bunch that newspapers specifically, and the credentialed media in general, were not hard enough on former and now future President Donald Trump.

But then came a second paragraph, which destroyed my preconceived notion of what the article was going to say: Continue reading →

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The Philadelphia Inquirer keeps up with the hate of Donald Trump even after the election

Wouldn’t the answer be, to children who might ask why former and future President Donald Trump beat current Vice President and future private citizen Kamala Harris Emhoff in the election, that the United States held a free and fair election, and as in every election, one serious candidate won, and one serious candidate lost? But no, the American left, having gone off the rails in their #TrumpDerangementSyndrome, think something else is required.

From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

How do we explain this election to our children?

Children need us to accept their gift of hope, even if we aren’t feeling it, and they need us to use it to fight for them.

by Gwen Snyder, For The Inquirer | Wednesday, November 13, 2024 | 6:00 AM EST

The past two months have been a whirlwind of autumnal novelty and stimulation for my preschooler. There was Sesame Place, then her 3rd birthday, then her first day of school. Just as things began to settle, we launched into a cascade of Halloween activities. And then, fast on their heels came the election.

Continue reading →

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The Philadelphia Inquirer conceals a truth that everyone already knows Is the Inky actually perpetuating a stereotype it wishes to avoid?

This site has reported, many times, on how The Philadelphia Inquirer censors the news, at the direction of published Elizabeth “Lisa” Hughes. Miss Hughes told us that “racial justice” concerns will be considered in the newspaper’s “crime and criminal justice coverage.”

Teen critically wounded in shooting on SEPTA bus in North Philly

The shooting occurred on Allegheny Avenue near Third Street, police said. Some gunshots hit the engine area and disabled the bus.

by Robert Moran and Earl Hopkins | Friday, October 4, 2024 | 9:47 PM EDT | Updated: Saturday, October 5, 2024 | 2:33 PM EDT

A 17-year-old was critically wounded in a shooting on a SEPTA bus Friday night in North Philadelphia, police said.

The shooting occurred just after 6:15 p.m. on Allegheny Avenue near Third Street, police said. The teen was taken by private vehicle to Temple University Hospital, where he was listed in critical but stable condition with several gunshot wounds, including to the face, police said Saturday.

The suspected shooter, described as a male wearing all-black clothing, got off the bus and fled in a silver Kia, which was located and pursued by police until it crashed at Fifth Street and Glenwood Avenue, said Inspector D.F. Pace. One person in the Kia ran from the car and was apprehended, according to video of the chase, but another remained at large, police said.

Based on a preliminary investigation, police said an altercation between several males on the bus likely led to the shooting near Allegheny Avenue and Fifth Street. The bus had several bullet holes, and spent shell casings were found on the highway in the 300 block of West Allegheny Avenue, so investigators are looking into the possibility of some shots fired outside the bus, Pace said.

There’s more at the original.

I noticed as soon as I read it: the “suspected shooter” was “described as a male wearing all-black clothing”. He wasn’t described as a white male, or an Hispanic male, or an Asian male, but just a male. And I was 99.44% certain that meant that the “suspected shooter” is a black male. The victim was described only as a “17-year-old,” but the Inquirer does tell us that he was male, through the use of the masculine pronouns.[1]Since, in English grammar, the masculine subsumes the feminine, the masculine pronouns are used when the sex of the person to which they refer are unknown, so that does not tell us, technically … Continue reading

But the reporters knew: the Philadelphia Police Department released a crime notification to the media, which Fox 29 News reporter Steve Keeley duplicated at 7:18 PM Friday evening, 2½ hours before the newspaper’s original story, which stated that the victim is a black male. And NBC 10 News reported last night that the suspect was a black male.

Let’s tell the truth here: when violent crime is reported in the City of Brotherly Love, people who hear about it automatically assume that the perpetrators are black. And, in the majority of cases, they are.

But not all of the bad guys in Philly are black, and when the Inky deliberately conceals the race of suspects and victims, is the newspaper not contributing to the stereotype that they are all black?

The Inquirer is privately owned, by the Leftist Lenfest Institute for Journalism, and absolutely has the right to print what it wishes, and not publicize what it wants to keep quiet. But it ought to be asked just how much journalist respect we can have for a newspaper that censors the news for political purposes.

References

References
↑1 Since, in English grammar, the masculine subsumes the feminine, the masculine pronouns are used when the sex of the person to which they refer are unknown, so that does not tell us, technically speaking, that the victim is male, but I also know that the newspaper’s reporters are too grammatically illiterate to realize that and use pronouns thus.
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Could Daniel Pearson be a conservative? His politics are straight Democrat, but every once in a while he expresses sentiments which are in line with civilized behavior

Daniel Pearson is the chief editorial writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer, and of course he favors Kamala Harris Emhoff and the Democrats in every election. Yet I have asked previously if Mr Pearson could actually be a conservative. He just mocked the entitled current generation in a Twitter thread, the first of which is illustrated to the right, and the rest of which reads:

The median American right now Tells pollsters they are so broke and are living paycheck to paycheck Also bought three Taylor Swift tickets in another city that requires travel and accommodations on top of the high cost of admission.

It is really hard not to think folks like this are just incredibly entitled. If you can afford to travel to watch a show you are wealthier than almost everyone else in human history. Have the dignity to accept that instead of pretending your are poor.

This economy is brutal I can barely afford my 2000 sq ft house and my 3 financed cars and my trip to Disney and my Taylor Swift tickets and my 6 streaming services and my $400 weekly doordash bill I can’t believe Joe Biden did this to me.

The same people are also mocking poor Haitians for eating dirt pies. They disdain those who actually struggle.

As it happens, my older daughter, a Staff Sergeant in the United States Army Reserve, was telling us Tuesday night about ‘Swifties’ who travel to foreign countries for Taylor Swift concerts to escape the extremely high prices of her concerts in the US, driven by scalper companies. I didn’t challenge what SSG Pico said, because I know nothing about the topic, or Miss Swift, other than she’s been dating Travis Kelce of the hated Kansas City Chiefs.

All Oakland — never Las Vegas! — Raiders fans hate the Chiefs! The only time I want to see the Chiefs win is when they’re playing the Dallas Cowboys!

There have been a few clues as to how Mr Pearson thinks. Inky columnist Will Bunch, who puts the far in far left, wanted Helen Gym Flaherty to become Philly’s mayor, but the newspaper instead endorsed Rebecca Rhynhart McDuff, who was at least somewhat more moderate, and the Editorial Board further trashed Mr Flaherty for her inability to tell voters from where the money would come to implement her quite frankly socialist plans.

In my previous article on Mr Pearson, I noted that he was supporting people acting civilly responsibly and not cutting any slack to SEPTA fare jumpers, and that he pointed out that enforcing the law against small offenses has had the effect of reducing the number of ‘bigger’ crimes.

Broken windows policing, anyone?

People like Mr Pearson give me some hope for a more sane Democratic Party, like we used to have. Right now, the Dems seem beholden to the extreme left of their party, but when the voters have their say, some of the more moderate — or at least more moderate-sounding — candidates, like Cherelle Parker Mullins and yes, even Joe Biden — though he has governed, at least when he’s been lucid, further to the left than he campaigned — have won primaries. Democrats in local and state campaigns have infrequently been as far to the left as those running for Congress, though I suppose that I have to exclude California from that statement. Democratic primary voters have dumped anti-Semitic Representatives Jamal Bowman (D-NY 16) and Cori Bush Merritts (D-MO 1) in favor of somewhat more moderate candidates, though Ilhan Omar Mynett (D-MN 5) unfortunately survived a primary challenge.

Many conservatives would have been fine with the Democratic candidate winning the 2020 presidential election had somewhat libertarian Representative Tulsi Gabbard Williams (D-HI 4) won the nomination!

That said, we still need Mr Trump to win in November, and for the GOP to capture the Senate, so that Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, who is 76 years old, can safely retire and be replaced by the same type of strongly conservative Justice that President Trump nominated during his first term!

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The inclusion of bias in news articles is subtle, but you have to be aware of it

This site has expressed some amusement at The Philadelphia Inquirer referring to gangs as “street groups.” It began when we were reliably informed by The Philadelphia Inquirer that there are no gangs in the city, just “cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families,” who sometimes had “beefs” with other cliques, so we must replace the term “gang-bangers” with “cliques of young men” or “clique beefers”. District Attorney Larry Krasner and his office seem to prefer the term “rival street groups“. Continue reading →

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Another five bite the dust! More layoffs at The Philadelphia Inquirer

Last Tuesday, I attended a meet-and-greet presentation held by the Lexington Herald-Leader, listening to Executive Editor Richard Green and Managing Editor Lauren Gorla. It was a decent meeting, and Miss Gorla said one thing which stuck with me. While newspapers used to depend primarily on advertising, she stated that currently what my best friend used to call the Herald-Liberal is primarily funded via subscriptions, and occasional donations from philanthropic organizations.

Available was a complete list of newspaper staffers, 32 to them, of which only 17 were listed as reporters, and only 13 of which were not listed as sports reporters.

I was thinking about that when I read a series of tweets from the News Guild of Greater Philadelphia.

We are disgusted and enraged to report that The Inquirer has laid off 5 of our members today.

This is the bulletin we sent to our members a short time ago:

Less than a week after The Inquirer announced a desire to have employees increase their days working in the office in the spirit of “collaboration, inclusion, and sense of urgency about our work” today the company informed five Guild members who have been extraordinary contributors to our mission that they are being laid off. So much for collaboration and inclusion. Continue reading →

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The Philadelphia Inquirer and their writers really hate it when the rule of law goes against their police-hating views

It is, of course, no surprise that most of the writers at The Philadelphia Inquirer hate the police. Columnist Helen Ubiñas, whose Twitter biography states that she is “a Latina columnist”, as though her ethnicity should make any difference, tweeted her great disappointment that former Philadelphia Police Officer Ryan Pownell should be reinstated, with back pay and restored seniority.

Fired Philly cop Ryan Pownall, whose murder case in controversial shooting was dismissed by judge, can get job back, arbitrator rules

The arbitrator also ruled that Pownall is also entitled to full back pay and seniority, the president of the police union said.

by Robert Moran | Thursday, April 25, 2024 | 8:56 PM EDT | Updated: 9:50 PM EDT

An arbitrator has ruled that the city must reinstate Ryan Pownall to his former job as a Philadelphia police officer — 1½ years after a judge dismissed criminal charges, including third-degree murder, that were filed against Pownall for the on-duty 2017 shooting death of David Jones. Continue reading →

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Why does The Philadelphia Inquirer, which won’t publish mugshots of real criminals, make deliberate exceptions for police officers convicted of crimes?

We have previously covered the death of 12-year-old Thomas “TJ” Siderio, sent to his eternal reward after he shot at police. Naturally, then-Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw suspended and then fired Police Officer Edsaul Mendoza, and, despite the Commissioner declining to publicly name the officer, for his safety, The Philadelphia Inquirer ferreted out his name and published it. Naturally, the George Soros-sponsored, police-hating, softer-than-Charmin-on-crime District Attorney Larry Krasner charged Officer Mendoza with among other things, first degree murder and third-degree murder. Now, two years later, Mr Mendoza has pleaded guilty of doing his job:

Former Philly cop who shot and killed 12-year-old T.J. Siderio pleads guilty to third-degree murder

Continue reading →

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In the wake of two shootings when students were boarding SEPTA buses, Jenice Armstrong wants fewer criminals put in prison

My good friend Daniel Pearson — OK, OK, we’ve never actually met, but we’ve interacted on Twitter, so that should count! — tweeted yesterday that he believed “the single most effective way to keep Philadelphia’s children safe would be passing common sense gun control measures.” An editorial writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer, Mr Pearson is a liberal Democrat, but he’s not the far-left whacko type, and you can peacefully and politely interact with him.

Mr Pearson’s tweet follows the news in the City of Brotherly Love as twice this week, as twice bullets rang out at SEPTA stops where students were catching bus rides home from school: the shooting at the “Five Points” intersection of Rising Sun and Cottman Avenues in the Burholme section of Northeast Philly left eight students from Northeast High School wounded, while Dayemen Taylor was killed, and four others injured at another bus stop shooting, this time on Ogontz, also in North Philly.

Naturally, all of the Powers That Be in Philly are upset, appalled, aghast, and spewing a lot of words. Philly’s softer-than-Charmin-on-crime District Attorney, Larry Krasner, said that the Ogontz shooting brought him to tears, and promised “swift justice,” saying, “This is an absolute outrage. It will be solved, and those responsible will be vigorously prosecuted.” Yeah, uh huh, right. Odds are that, when the suspects are identified, it will be determined that they had previous ‘contact’ with the criminal justice system, and they suffered almost no consequences.

For now, police are focused on recovering more evidence and chasing down tips, (Deputy Police Commissioner Frank) Vanore said. Investigators believe the three shooters were likely juveniles, he said, which makes it all the more concerning that they each had a handgun.

In other words, those “common sense gun control laws” that Mr Pearson advocated were already being broken, in that it is already illegal for juveniles to possess and carry handguns in Philly. Given that they used a stolen, blue Hyundai Sonata, which was later abandoned in Olney, as their getaway car, and that they sprayed more than 30 shots into the crowd, it would seem that the malefactors really don’t give a damn about laws.

But today, Inquirer columnist Jenice Armstrong decided to tell us that the city shouldn’t be locking up people for gun crimes!

Philly program keeps gun offenders out of prison. I’m all for it.

Over the years, I’ve become more skeptical that incarceration is the answer to all our crime problems.

by Jenice Armstrong | Thursday, March 7, 2024 | 6:00 AM EST

I love a graduation ceremony, and the one I attended last month was no exception.

But this one was a little different. For starters, it took place inside a courtroom at the Juanita Kidd Stout Center for Criminal Justice in Center City. Also, there was no playing of the quintessential graduation song, “Pomp and Circumstance,” no wearing of caps and gowns. The graduates were dressed in hoodies, jeans, work boots, and other casual attire. There were few family members present, although one graduate carried a small daughter on his hip.

Each had successfully met the requirements for a new diversionary program called the Alternative Felony Disposition program. Created in 2021 by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, with input from the Center for Carceral Communities at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Work, the program allows people with no prior criminal record who have been arrested on illegal gun charges to avoid jail time. The current crop of graduates, who began the program in July, had been assigned social workers they met with regularly. They also had been expected to attend group sessions with other defendants.

There’s more at the original.

Miss Armstrong has forgotten one obvious thing: those who are locked up, for gun crimes as well as other offenses, are not out on the streets, stealing Kias and Hyundais to use as getaway vehicles from planned shootings.

I also better understand that crime is a complex problem — one that Philly can’t expect to arrest its way out of. I agree with officials who say the city’s focus should be on the long-standing structural and systemic issues that drive people to arm themselves illegally, such as underfunded schools, government neglect of impoverished and broken neighborhoods, and a bloated justice system that targets poor and Black and brown city residents.

Miss Armstrong just can’t seem to understand, or at least admit it if she does understand, that the criminal justice system “targets poor and black and brown city residents” because the majority of crime in Philly is committed by those ‘people of color.’ Perhaps ‘incarceration isn’t the answer to all our crime problems’, but it’s the answer to the vast majority of them.

It’s an interesting set of messages: Mr Pearson wants more “common sense gun control measures” to fight crime, while Miss Armstrong doesn’t want those who violate existing laws to be punished. How does that work?