John Leo has a terrific story on the Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom media blackout.  You’ll remember they’re the white couple that was kidnapped and treated horribly before they were murdered.  Of course the story didn’t get national attention because the people arrested for the crime are black while the victims were white.  It just doesn’t match the media’s template so they just aren’t going to cover it.

The article is definitely worth reading but I found out about another curious media blackout that I hadn’t caught before.

A recent example is the “second rape case in Durham.” In this eerie reversal of the Duke lacrosse story, a girl was allegedly raped in the bathroom of a Duke fraternity house during a party. North Carolina’s News & Observer said the suspect being sought was in “his late teens or early 20s, about 6 foot 1 and wearing a do-rag, a gray sweatshirt and blue jeans.” However, the story failed to mention that the suspect was black, the alleged victim is white, and the fraternity, initially unnamed, is African-American.

True that wouldn’t generally be national news since the it wasn’t at a “Team Party” (although who really cares about the Lacrosse team anyway).  But it should have been news because of the huge coverage the Lacrosse team prosecution was getting.  In fact as Leo points out even the local media completely bailed on the race in the second crime when it was of paramount importance in the first.

Leo’s conclusion is spot on:

Before long, more news consumers will conclude that even crime news is in effect being politicized. Is this any way to protect an industry in trouble?

Does the news media think they can control what people think?