A Lesson in Reading the Media

By Selwyn Duke

While the job of the media should be to inform and clarify, our mainstream press long ago abdicated that responsibility.   It now specializes in muddying the waters and journalistic sleight-of-hand, and I came across a prime example of this just yesterday.

It was this piece in USA Today, which bears the headline "17 arrested after youths riot in Denmark." 

Yes, "youths."

Not white youths, black youths, Asian youths, just, I suppose, garden-variety youths. 

Hardly.

Do you know what "youths" usually means within the context of such reportage?  Well, you can scour the story, but this pillar of journalistic integrity -- which, quite amazingly, some people actually pay for -- won't tell you (although it becomes pretty obvious).  But I recognized the euphemism as soon as I read the headline.

The rioters were Moslem youths.

The closest the paper comes to defining the nature of the miscreants was in this passage:

"Some observers said immigrant youths were protesting against perceived police harassment and suggested the reprinting of a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad in Danish newspapers Wednesday, may have aggravated the situation."

Yes, they describe them as "immigrant youths" (that will end once the media become too politically correct to implicate immigrants) and as "attackers"; otherwise, no more specificity is forthcoming, as the media are the three monkeys who see, hear and speak no evil.

It much reminds me of something George Orwell said:

"At any given moment there is a sort of all-prevailing orthodoxy, a general tacit agreement not to discuss some large and uncomfortable fact."

Of course, the things we're not supposed to discuss nowadays are legion, but this coddling of Moslem troublemakers is a big one.  The media do it all the time.

"Youths."

Pay attention; you'll be amazed. 

When journalists do this, it's bad reporting.  If there's a common thread among rioters, some defining trait or association that is integral to the newsworthy crime that they perpetrated and you've seen fit to cover, it's incumbent upon you to mention that element.  And, believe it or not, you're supposed to do this even if it identifies a group that's in favor politically.  I know, truth in journalism -- radical concept, isn't it?

The media have become so ridiculous that if it weren't so tragic, it would be laughable.  If a man commits a crime, should the headline be "Person Murders Convenience Store Clerk" or maybe  "Biped Terminates Function of Low-wage Sentient Being"? 

Also, make no mistake, if the rioters had been Christians who became violent over abortion, the media not only would have identified them, they would have relished doing so.  They might even have correlated the act with some similar event that occurred 13 years ago so as to create the impression that it reflects a pattern of behavior. 

Any which way you slice it, Moslem violence is a common theme nowadays, and no amount of burying our heads in the sand will change that fact.  Little children might hide under their covers and convince themselves that the report card bearing the D won't really arrive, but I would hope that adults could view the world with open eyes.  I would hope.

Regardless, this harks back to what I said last night.  This is one reason why mainstream newspapers are faltering.  If you can't even count on them to disseminate basic facts, what good are they?  After all, not all that many people own birds.

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Comments

[Richard Sampson]

Isn't it time all european people based countries to consider expulsion? If my memory is correct, all germans were forcibly expelled from what was once Prussia to Germany. There is no histoical proof that multiracial societies are viable in the long term!