{"id":96769,"date":"2016-05-20T13:53:45","date_gmt":"2016-05-20T21:53:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=96769"},"modified":"2016-05-20T13:53:45","modified_gmt":"2016-05-20T21:53:45","slug":"from-desegregation-to-disinformation-the-decline-of-the-virginian-pilot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=96769","title":{"rendered":"From Desegregation To Disinformation: The Decline Of The Virginian-Pilot"},"content":{"rendered":"

From 2012<\/a>: As a local newsman, I have been particularly interested in the Virginian-Pilot\u2019s<\/em> now-notorious attempt to suppress the story<\/a> of a black mob\u2019s beating two members of its own staff, Dave Forster and Marjon Rostami.<\/p>\n

As I argued here<\/a> almost exactly three years ago, this sort of thing usually arises from the characteristic culture of the American newsroom. No marching orders to manipulate facts need be given. The newsroom worldview literally inoculates reporters and editors against ideas that might cause them to question the typical Main Stream Media narrative.<\/p>\n

But I now must add this proviso: While the leftist worldview<\/a>  drives  most news coverage in concept<\/a>, and most reporters and editors do not consciously insert bias into most stories, in some cases, by omission or commission,<\/a> they flat out lie.<\/p>\n

Nothing else explains what occurred, for instance, in NBC\u2019s editing<\/a> of the audio tapes<\/a> of George Zimmerman\u2019s call to police the night he shot Trayvon Martin in self defense<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And nothing else explains why the Pilot<\/em> buried the story.<\/p>\n

Thus, for example the Pilot\u2019s Editor, Denis Finley<\/a> (email him<\/a>), said in his memo to the staff trying to explain away his behavior:<\/p>\n

\n

Based on the facts, this story did not cross the bar to be published because as a general rule, The Pilot<\/em> doesn`t publish stories about simple assaults. …<\/p>\n

We have done our due diligence with the story. We have checked the police reports. I have read them. We have checked to see whether there is an inordinate amount of crime in the neighborhood where the attack happened. There is not.<\/p>\n

 Pilot stands by handling of attack on staff members<\/em><\/a> May 3, 2012<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But the comment thread on Finley\u2019s showed that his readers knew perfectly well that Finley was lying and had no difficulty proving it. One commenter noted that the newspaper\u2019s job was to find out whether it was a \u201csimple assault\u201d and whether it was a racial attack. [Do your job!<\/a> Submitted by JayDough<\/a> May 9, 2012] Another exploded<\/a> that Finley\u2019s claim about the neighborhood:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cFrom WAVY.com`s story<\/a> about the incident, \u2018WAVY.com, using data from crimemapping.com<\/a>, looked into how many crimes are reported in the area of the April 14 assault. A report for the week of April 8 until April 14 shows 49 crimes were reported within a one mile radius of the reported assault.\u2019\u201d[Disappointing Editor<\/a> Submitted by ozzy4sure<\/a> on May 4, 2012]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Anyone who has worked in a newsroom knows that a mob beating<\/a> of any two people, reporters or not, is news<\/a>. Had a group of whites attacked two black reporters leaving an all-white \u201cenclave,\u201d as the media like to describe<\/a> white neighborhoods, you can bet the story would have been on the front page. The Pilot<\/em> would have been beside itself with rage.<\/p>\n

That leaves the question of why an editorial writer broke the news in an opinion column. [A beating at Church and Brambleton<\/a>,<\/em>  By Michelle Washington, The Virginian-Pilot<\/em>,  May 1, 2012] My guess: after holding the story for two weeks, the newspaper couldn\u2019t report the attack as news. And perhaps the news staff, knowing the attack was no \u201csimple assault,\u201d rebelled against the newspaper\u2019s editorial bureaucrats. <\/strong>Yet if what Finley claimed was true\u2014that the crime was not racial and really was a simple assault\u2014then he is left with the problem explain why he permitted a columnist to write about it at all.<\/p>\n

Given the Virginian-Pilot\u2019s<\/em> history, a lie on behalf of the city\u2019s angry black majority would be no surprise. The longtime owner of the paper, Frank Batten Sr.<\/a>, was a staunch desegregationist at a time when such an editorial position was quite unpopular<\/a> in Virginia. It won<\/a> a Pulitzer Prize<\/a>  for its editorials on the subject.<\/a><\/p>\n

Batten created a media empire that turned into Landmark Media Enterprises. He founded The Weather Channel.<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t expect the Pilot<\/em> to report on the black storm raging across America in such fronts as the knock-down game<\/a>, Polar bear hunting<\/a>, and flash mobs<\/a>, all of which involve a beating at best or a murder at worst.<\/p>\n

The Virginian Pilot\u2019s<\/em> editorial about<\/a> this scandal said the crime means \u201cNorfolk needs a civil conversation.\u201d After several paragraphs uncivilly suggesting that readers unhappy with the coverage are racists, it concluded that no one really knows what happened or motivated the crimes and then sallied forth with this idiocy: \u201cRace doesn\u2019t define us. It doesn\u2019t define who we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tell that<\/a> to Al<\/a> or Jesse and those, like Spike Lee,<\/a> who wanted George Zimmerman strung up from a lamppost without a trial.<\/a><\/p>\n

Many years ago, the late newsmen Peter Jennings and Mike Wallace declared<\/a> that they would not, in covering a war, alert American GIs to an enemy ambush. They were reporters first, they said, and Americans second.  <\/p>\n

One wonders if their contemporary<\/a> counterparts would warn an elderly white couple<\/a> if a black flash mob<\/a> was about to attack.  <\/p>\n

We already know they wouldn\u2019t report it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From 2012: As a local newsman, I have been particularly interested in the Virginian-Pilot\u2019s now-notorious attempt to suppress the story of a black mob\u2019s beating two members of its own staff, Dave Forster and Marjon Rostami. As I argued here … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blacks","category-journalism"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=96769"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96770,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96769\/revisions\/96770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=96769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=96769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=96769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}