GREENSBORO, NC -- Kudos to News & Record reporter Dawn DeCwikiel-Kane.
For some reason, it has been extremely difficult for local media to report accurately on the nature of downtown teen violence. A single attack by one person on another became a wilding flash mob organized by social media; a series of small fights over a seven hour period became a 400-teen brawl as local TV news people insisted we disbelieve our lying eyes and described video of crowded streets as showing throngs of people fighting.
It is a sad state of affairs that has earned us a permanent but unwarranted black mark on our Wikipedia entry and ill repute world wide.
Today, DeCwikiel-Kane just raised the bar. In a story about the Community Theatre of Greensboro wanting to start some teen activity nights, DeCwikiel-Kane described some of the downtown crimes in a straight-forward stick-to-the-facts way. That might seem unremarkable—that it is what reporters are supposed to do—but it is head and shoulders above the sensationalism and breathless hyperbolic misinformation of other local media and it stands out as notable*.
Thank you, Ms. DeCwikiel-Kane.
[* It should be remembered that DeCwikiel-Kane's colleague Joe Gamm, in writing about one night in particular, also managed to stick to the facts.]
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