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“.

It seems as though the editors at the newspaper have heard some of the mockery and realized that they were simply beclowning themselves. The Twitter site Philly Crime Update might have more attention from the Inky than I do.

Reporter Ellie Rushing, who was one of four of the newspaper’s reporters sharing the byline of the article telling us about the “cliques of young men”, seems to have broken out of the “street groups” mentality, as her article “West Philly gang member ‘Pistol P’ pleads guilty to shooting nine people, killing three, in 2021: Anthony Lacey-Woodson is “a selfish and brutal killer” who “deserves to live in state prison,” the prosecutor said,” uses the word “gang” freely.

None of the people Anthony Lacey-Woodson admitted to killing in a ruthless West Philadelphia gang feud were his intended targets.

First, there was young Antonio Walker Jr., a 15-year-old who was walking to play basketball with his cousin when Lacey-Woodson shot him multiple times.

Then, four months later, on the night of July 4, there was Sircarr Johnson Jr., 23, and Salahaldin Mahmoud, 21. The two were attending a barbecue cookout at Johnson’s West Philadelphia clothing store when Lacey-Woodson and three others fired more than 100 bullets into the party, killing the two young men and injuring two women.

On Monday, nearly three years after the bloodshed, Lacey-Woodson pleaded guilty to over a dozen crimes for his part in those killings as well as four other shootings in 2021. In all, he admitted to shooting nine people over seven months in that year.

Lacey-Woodson, better known as “Pistol P,” was a member of 02da4, a gang from the 60th and 64th Streets in West Philadelphia. Prosecutors said he and others in the group would drive through the neighborhood on the hunt for members of a rival crew 524 — affiliated with 52nd and 54th Streets in Kingsessing — leaving a trail of trauma in their wake.

Prosecutors say the back-and-forth between the gangs left more than 53 people shot, including 16 dead, in less than a year. More than half of the victims were bystanders who had nothing to do with the feud, said Assistant District Attorney Jeffrey Palmer, who prosecuted the case.

I won’t complain about Miss Rushing using the words “rival crew” to describe 524, because it looks like it was done for prosaic reasons, and she was unafraid to label them a gang further down in the article.

But then we have journolist^[1]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 Jesse Bunch, the nepotism (?) hired son (?) of far-left^[2]While the Inquirer’s Editorial Board endorsed the very liberal Rebecca Rhynhart McDuff for the Democratic nomination for Mayor, Will Bunch objected and endorsed the far, far, far left Helen Gym … Continue reading and thoroughly eaten up by #TrumpDerangementSyndrome Inquirer columnist Will Bunch:

Street group tied to 5 homicides and a host of shootings has been eliminated, DA Krasner says

The “Big Naddy Gang” is “history,” Krasner said Monday.

by Jesse Bunch | Monday, June 3, 2024 | 5:43 PM EDT

A violent North Philadelphia street group tied to a string of shootings and homicides is effectively “gone,” District Attorney Larry Krasner said Monday as he announced murder and related charges against eight men.

The group, dubbed “Big Naddy Gang” or BNG, is “history” after a grand jury investigation that led to the charges, said Krasner, as he stood with Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel, city prosecutors, and members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

“BNG is gone, we are not just talking about ‘some of them got caught for something,’” the district attorney said of the street group, whose members are accused of crimes in and around Strawberry Mansion “ … those communities and those neighborhoods, if they don’t know it already, they will know it soon.”

The eight men now face charges of murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, and firearm offenses and are accused of committing a string of shootings in 2021 and 2022.

There’s more at the original, but it didn’t take me long to notice: the younger Mr Bunch did not change the direct quotes of others — a policy to which this site also adheres — but he also does not use the word “gang” in anything he wrote himself. He does refer to BNG by its initials, so he didn’t have to type the word “gang” anywhere himself.

At least to judge by Miss Rushing’s article, the Inquirer doesn’t have a ban on using the word “gang” to describe gangs anymore, but I have to ask: can we actually trust the reporting of the younger Mr Bunch if he is still trying to mealy-mouth the truth about gang-bangers. His reporting in the cited article details the charges against the accused bad guys in a straightforward and apparently unbiased manner, but how can we trust that his biases won’t subtly creep into other news articles?

This is how bias creeps into the credentialed media. Outright lies rarely occur, and unintentional mistakes are normally corrected, but it is the subtle choice of words and choices on what to emphasize or diminish in which bias creeps in. “Gang” connotes crime, while “street groups” could just be fellows playing basketball in a public park. Articles on transgenderism might seem unbiased, but the use of the Associated Press Stylebook and the ‘requirement’ to refer to the transgendered by the names, honorifics, and pronouns they claim subtly encourages the notion that the transgendered are the sex they claim to be, rather than the sex they actually are.

This is where bias is found, and this is where readers and televiewers have to pay attention to what is being said or presented.