Why does a newspaper censor the news? The Philadelphia Inquirer kept from its readers information already available to the public.

With 6,245,051 people according to the 2020 census, Philadelphia and its surrounding metropolitan area is the seventh largest in the United States. With a population of 1,603,797, the city of Philadelphia itself is the sixth largest in the United States. So why, then, does The Philadelphia Inquirer rank only 17th in circulation? Could it be because they censor the news?

Grandson charged with murdering his grandfather and another man stemming from a dispute over bedroom conditions

The circumstances leading to the arrest of Czar McMichael, 22, of North Philly, began on Thursday when Benjamin E. McMichael, 67, conducted “a routine inspection” of his grandson’s bedroom.

by Diane Mastrull | Sunday, May 1, 2022 | 4:27 PM EDT

Czar McMichael, via Fox 29 News

A Philadelphia man has been charged with murder in two shootings over two days that left his grandfather and another man dead in a double homicide that emanated from a complaint over the condition of the grandson’s bedroom, police said Sunday.The circumstances leading to the arrest of Czar McMichael, 22, of the Logan section of North Philly, began on Thursday when, police said, Benjamin E. McMichael, 67, conducted “a routine inspection” of his grandson Czar’s third-floor bedroom in their home on the 4600 block of North Broad Street and was upset with the condition of the room.

Police said the elder McMichael grabbed his grandson’s arm and Czar McMichael spun around and shot his grandfather.

On Saturday Anthony Ham, 45, of Philadelphia, along with an acquaintance stopped by the McMichael home to check on Benjamin because they hadn’t heard from him in a couple days. Ham got into the home by climbing through a window and unlocked the door for the person with him, whom police did not identify.

There’s more at the original.

What did I predict? That the newspaper would decline to print the suspect’s mugshot and would do what it could to conceal the suspect’s race. And in fact the Inquirer did not include the suspect’s mugshot, though it was easily available and had been published on Fox 29 News. Steve Keeley of Fox 29 tweeted his mugshot at 1:47 PM EDT, 2 hours and 40 minutes before the Inquirer’s article was published.

Mr Keeley also published the Philadelphia Police Department’s press release on the matter, which noted that the victims were a (45/B/M) and a (67/B/M), but of course the very “anti-racist” and #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 were not about to publish that!

Yet the newspaper published the mugshot of Kathleen Kane, a Scranton woman who has been out of public office for six years, who has been disbarred and thus no longer practices law, and who has, as nearly as I can discover, simply been living on the spousal support from the wealthy businessman she divorced since she got out of jail.

Black murder suspect in the newspaper’s hometown? Conceal that information! Attractive white woman accused, but not convicted of, a DUI? Splash her photo all over the newspaper’s website, and Twitter!

This is what passes for journalism in the nation’s third oldest continuously published daily newspaper: conceal the facts which are inconvenient and do not go along with publisher Lisa Hughes’ ideas and goals.

References

References
1 From Wikipedia:

Woke (/ˈwk/) 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.

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