SouthernN'Proud
Southern Discomfort
from tonguetied.us
At the Sacramento Bee, according to public editor Armando Acuna, the following descriptions of crime suspects are not specific enough to warrant inclusion of the suspect's race:
"5-foot-10, 185 pounds, with athletic build and short brown hair. He was wearing blue jeans and a hooded gray American eagle sweat shirt with pink, green and blue stripes near the sleeve shoulders."
"Stocky, 5-foot-9, 185 pounds with spiky brown hair. He was wearing blue jeans and a hooded black or dark-colored sweat shirt with lettering."
Providing more accurate descriptions of suspects that are wanted by police could "provide false crime-solving leads and contribute to racial profiling," Acuna writes. Those who want the paper to publish more complete descriptions are often racists "who seem more interested in keeping a racial scorecard than in finding a suspect," he writes.
**end**
And withholding information to identify someone simply because we don't want to offend someone is irresponsible "journalism" and places the entire community in peril. But at least we didn't piss Jesse Jackson, David Duke, Louis Farrakhan or however it's spelled, or any other nutcase activist off. Nice. Warm. Fuzzy.
I betcha if somebody broke into Acuna's house, tied him up, and kidnapped a family member he'd damn sure know what race they were. And so would the readership of his newspaper.
At the Sacramento Bee, according to public editor Armando Acuna, the following descriptions of crime suspects are not specific enough to warrant inclusion of the suspect's race:
"5-foot-10, 185 pounds, with athletic build and short brown hair. He was wearing blue jeans and a hooded gray American eagle sweat shirt with pink, green and blue stripes near the sleeve shoulders."
"Stocky, 5-foot-9, 185 pounds with spiky brown hair. He was wearing blue jeans and a hooded black or dark-colored sweat shirt with lettering."
Providing more accurate descriptions of suspects that are wanted by police could "provide false crime-solving leads and contribute to racial profiling," Acuna writes. Those who want the paper to publish more complete descriptions are often racists "who seem more interested in keeping a racial scorecard than in finding a suspect," he writes.
**end**
And withholding information to identify someone simply because we don't want to offend someone is irresponsible "journalism" and places the entire community in peril. But at least we didn't piss Jesse Jackson, David Duke, Louis Farrakhan or however it's spelled, or any other nutcase activist off. Nice. Warm. Fuzzy.
I betcha if somebody broke into Acuna's house, tied him up, and kidnapped a family member he'd damn sure know what race they were. And so would the readership of his newspaper.
