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01/29/04 DMN
only tells us what they think we should know.
If you don't think your
letters to the DMN make a difference, check out the following articles that have
appeared in the past few days since the weekend muggings on Greenville Ave. by a
"pair" of Black males, lead by a Black male with a glass eye, a gold front tooth
and a cigar.
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Robbers mug 10 on Greenville;
2 men target groups in 5 minutes on
busy stretch of strip
09:23 PM CST
Mon, 01/26/04
MICHAEL GRABELL / The Dallas Morning News |
In a span of five minutes,
a pair of robbers mugged 10 people
Saturday night in a busy stretch of bars and restaurants on Greenville
Avenue, Dallas police said.
. . . ?I will shoot you in the face,? the
gunman threatened. He had a gold tooth and a cigar hanging from his mouth,
victims said. His accomplice said nothing.
The attorney gave the man her purse,
but he gave it back, saying he wanted only cash and then hit her on the back
of the head with the handgun.
. . . ?I want everything you have,? the man told
them. He had a gold tooth and a ?bad eye,? victims said. His accomplice was
quiet and seemed scared.
?I want $100 in cash, or I am going
to put a hole in you,? the gunman said. . . .
One had only $4, and the gunman got angry and kicked her in the head.
. . . Lt. Genovesi said the man with a gold tooth
and a bad eye may be connected to two other robberies, in which victims gave
the same description. |
That's not what the officer said on Fox's Ch. 4.
It's one thing for the Dallas Managed News to be politically correct with their
own writing, but they could at least quote the officer accurately.
Apparently, you folks got pretty testy with Belo. I was one of the folks
who fired off a letter blasting their coverage. Look how Grabell reports
the story a couple of days later.
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Police add patrols on Lower Greenville;
Officials looking to bring end to
armed robberies in area
03:41 AM CST
Wedy, 01/28/04, 2004
MICHAEL GRABELL / The Dallas Morning News
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... On Saturday, two men mugged three groups
of people at gunpoint as the groups left restaurants and walked to
nightspots at the corner of Greenville and Penrose avenues on the north end
of the entertainment district.
... "One thing that really stands out in all of
the complainants' description is he's in his late 20s, early 30s, and he
must have a prominent gold tooth," Deputy Chief Turnage said of one suspect.
"Then they always notice a lazy eye, a cloudy eye or a glass eye."
... Police said that according to witnesses, both
men were black. The man with the gold tooth and bad eye carried a blue steel
handgun and shouted orders while another seemed more reserved, even scared,
victims said. ...
Staff writer Dave Levinthal
contributed to this report. |
Actually, Fox 4, you and I
contributed to this report. We forced the DMN to tell the whole story.
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In crime, race can trip us up
10:23 PM CST Tues, 01/27/04
Steve Blow /The
Dallas Morning News. |
...When it's not safe to go near Snuffer's,
something is terribly wrong in this town.
...In fact, several favorite restaurants are
clustered in that area. So it was especially distressing to read in the
paper Tuesday that 10 people were robbed there Saturday night.
...from the e-mails peppering the newspaper
yesterday that many of you were distressed, too.
So let's talk about this business of
race and crime stories. . . . we have a
well-reasoned, well-established policy on the matter. But I think we blew it
in Tuesday's story.
Some readers have been angry with us
from the start of the Greenville robberies because race has not been
mentioned in most of the stories.
... newspapers have a pretty shameful history in
this regard. It was once standard to begin news stories: "Two Negro men
robbed a store...." But if the bandits were white, guess what? "Two men
robbed a store...."
And so journalists arrived at the
policy that we and most news organizations have today. Race is reported only
if the suspect is still at large and there is a description specific enough
that the public might help identify the person.
... Another reason is so people can take
precautions against becoming a victim.
... our policy on identifying race.... If a victim
could only say the bank robber was a middle-aged white man, we don't report
the description. If the victim says it was a heavyset white man with "Lulu"
tattooed on his forearm, we report it.
... Tuesday's story. We reported that the gunman
in Saturday's robberies had a gold tooth, a bad eye and a cigar dangling
from his mouth.
By our own policy, we should have rounded out that
description by saying the gunman was black, ...
Of course, some readers want us to
report the race in every crime. They like to have their stereotypes
confirmed.
... the most violent Greenville Avenue robbery was
committed by a white guy. The victim said it never occurred to him that the
man tapping on his car window might be a robber. ... |
That's so much baloney. The
fact is the first muggers were Black guys. The victims were two White
women. In Dangerously Managed
News, we reported that Molly T was ignored by DMN reporters when she
first reported the mugging she and a friend experienced after leaving a
restaurant on Greenville Ave. Had the DMN and other media outlets reported
that violent incident, the next several victims might have been spared the
terror of what happened to them. Neither Molly or her friend were shot,
but her friend was wearing a sling (recovering from shoulder surgery) and was
knocked to the ground on the bad shoulder. Tell her, it was not a violent
attack.
| In neither article, did the reporters mention the appearance or ethnicity of the
muggers. Molly identified them as "2 black males" in her e-mail to me.
She most certainly advised the DMN reporters about what the
muggers looked like, but the reporter did not think it was relevant. |
When an entertainer from one of the businesses on
Greenville Ave. was shot after leaving his job, the DMN reported the assailant
as a White male with hardly any other description.
Aren't you sick of politically correct aging hippie liberals assuming they know
your motives for wanting to have enough information to protect yourself from bad
guys?
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DYLAN CAVE (www.isthisdallas.com)
LETTER TO STEVE BLOW (DMN):
For most people, a racial
description of a suspect has nothing to do with stereotypes.
I did, however, find it disturbing when it
appeared the DMN was withholding
information when the suspects
were Black or Hispanic,
but reporting when the
suspect was White. Your statement about not reporting details such
as "middle-aged white man", is not accurate. Read
the below story, (since removed from the web, but you should have access
to it). This story reported the suspect to be a white male, etc, etc, etc.
Regardless of the spin the News is putting on
this, it appears to your readers as an unfairly applied "PC" policy.
I take particular exception to your statement "Of course, some readers
want us to report the race in every crime. They like to have their
stereotypes confirmed."
My wife is Hispanic with dual US and Mexican
citizenship. Am I a still bigot if I want
to know if a gang of youths beating people up at a local theater happen to
be Hispanic as well? Criminals of any race are
criminals, period.
What your readers what, is accurate reporting
of the news.
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The night of the robberies, Fox 4 had a police officer on camera describing the
lead bad guy as a Black male, with a glass eye and a gold front tooth.
That's simple. Nothing stereotype about it. If the bad guy had been
a White male, that should have been reported, too, as well as the color of his
hair -- yellow, brown, black -- bald, bushy, short, slick. Anything to get
the description out to catch him and forewarn future victims.
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