Brett Stevens writes: We trust our newspapers, who have a profit interest in reporting things we like to read, to interpret that interest as a mandate for telling the truth as they see it.
However, as we find out with each generation, newspapers often filter “truth” through two sieves to withdraw upsetting information: first, what is politically de rigeur at the time, and second, what their advertisers and vocal interest groups want to hear.
In addition, we are literally drowning in news. There are now thousands of papers, millions of blogs, uncountable podcasts and citizen journalist outfits on the information waves, each thrusting forth its best eye-catching headlines.
Through these two filters, we lose sight of what happens and rely on the spin and opinion-shaping abilities of the news. Scan the big headlines, then see what the pundits say, and find a nice tidy conclusion to seal the deal.
Colin Flaherty, an acclaimed reporter, approaches the news as a giant set of data points. By themselves, these data points are easily lost in the flood or explained away with political or commercial rhetoric.
However, when Flaherty goes through with his highlighter and connects the dots for us, a pattern emerges. This pattern contradicts the “official story” which explains away the pattern in favor of focus on single points, and punditry to justify what happened as not what the pattern says it is.
In this case, he offers a simple thesis: the race riots of the 1920s, 1960s and 1990s have returned, but in a new form. This time, they are micro-riots. Flash mobs, or groups of a few dozen to a few thousand people, emerge spontaneously to rob, assault, batter and steal — but none dare call it a “riot.”
This is not a racist book. Flaherty does not make any conclusions about why this is happening, or blame all African-Americans for the actions of some African-Americans. He does however make two compelling points:
Race riots have returned in the form of flash mobs.
Our media is unwilling to report this but will explain it away.
