GREENSBORO, NC -- At some point, it is going to dawn on the fogies at the News & Record that they are no longer gatekeepers of information, haven't been for a while now, and that much of what they purport to "report" we have already seen from original sources. Until then, their confusion allows us to catch them red handed subverting the facts in the service of ends other than thorough reporting.
In a press release from the Greensboro Police Department describing the robbery of an individual yesterday, the suspects were described as four "black males." In the News & Record's regurgitation of the press release, they scrubbed some of the detail and described simply "four male suspects."
I've written before of the News & Record's outright deceptions when altering suspect descriptions whereby they falsely explained to readers that descriptions were not available, incomplete or where they simply censored descriptions with no explanation.
Anonymous commenters have defended this practice by saying that it is "irresponsible" to describe suspects with only two or three characteristics because such descriptions potentially describe "millions" of people. How exactly that is irresponsible has not been explained and it implies that the police too must be irresponsible in providing the available details, even if those are "incomplete" descriptions of suspects. Of course, a "complete description" is practically impossible.
It is hilarious though how tightly backed into a corner the News & Record finds itself by pretending they have some professionally justifiable reason for dumbing down their reporting. Today's story is a perfect example.
By describing yesterday's robbery suspects as only "males," the News & Record has committed the very offense it pretends it has been avoiding when scrubbing race from suspect descriptions: They have provided a description that could not possibly be any more incomplete unless they just described the suspects as "people." They have "irresponsibly" provided descriptions that could describe half the population. If there is some theoretical line not to cross where descriptions are too broad to be "responsible," than a description that only provides gender crosses it for sure.
Why did the News & Record describe the suspects as four males instead of four people or instead of four black males? Maybe there is no legitimate line delineating just enough and too little detail and the News & Record has other good reasons for scrubbing race from suspect descriptions; or maybe there is no good reason.
The N&R has a policy, about which it has been transparent, if not smart, and there's some logic behind it even if that logic is not compelling (and I concede that it no longer is). But let's stop pretending that they're evil.
ReplyDeleteWhy did they include gender and not race? What is the logic of that, exactly?
ReplyDelete-- Roch