Every now and again, the Houston Chronicle blogs surface interesting discussions… and the comments that came in on a recent post by James Campbell is a great example.
Mr. Campbell was addressing an email from a reader who wondered why the Chronicle was late specifying that Quintero (the accused murderer of Officer Rodney Johnson) was here illegally… but right out of the gate, the comments went to race and ethnicity.
How is it that some folks don’t seem to understand that someone’s legal / illegal status in this country does not indicate race or ethnicity… or that their fixation on race says far more about them than it does about the media?
Frankly, I can only think of a single instance where the public is served by reporting racial or ethnic characteristics — When there is a fugitive at large in the community, and folks need to be able to identify him/her.
It is naive to suppose that racial characteristics do not figure into an individual’s unique appearance. If the public is “on the look-out” for someone, it’s every bit as useful to identify straight sandy-colored hair as it is black dreadlocks.
Other than a need to protect the public, though, calling out racial or ethnic characteristics is to underscore them — to highlight them — and this applies to more than race or ethnicity.
Consider the bizarre generalizations that have been made about the Katrina evacuees and New Orleans. Does anybody seriously think that Jim Pruett would have been able to embarrass himself (and the city of Houston) with his gun shop commercial and “Katricians”, if local reporting had not been specifying “Katrina evacuee”?
Such reporting has been, quite frankly, irresponsible.
We don’t hear the place of origin for other suspects in crimes… and the HPD has not distinguished between victims and criminals. Am I the only one who sees a problem here? It’s one thing for the FBI or local police departments to capture statistics, but it’s another thing entirely when information is delivered piecemeal, and focused on a specific population.
So back to Quintero… what people really wanted to know was his status in this country. Was he legal or illegal? As it happens, he was illegal and he’d been deported for prior crimes (against a child, to my disgust)… but that hasn’t got a thing to do with the hair on his head or the shade of his skin. Officer Johnson was black. Does that matter too? No. It doesn’t.
Some commenters suggested that the reporting standard should be to give the race/ethnicity of every suspect. To what purpose? What would people gain?
Polimom’s kitchen must be missing an item that other households possess: a whiteboard so people can put a hash-mark under black, brown, and white. If so, I’m glad… and I’m very sorry that others feel the need to keep score.
The Chronicle — and other news sources — should absolutely be paying close attention to what, and how, they are reporting race, ethnicity, and place of origin. Unless they plan to disclose that a criminal comes from Dallas or Anchorage (as well as New Orleans) — and distinguish between victims and perpetrators — they should drop it from ordinary news stories. The statistics are a separate story altogether, newsworthy in and of itself, but counter-productive at the micro-level.
Unless there is a criminal for whom the police are looking, reports should not include race or ethnicity at all… and when they do, it should apply across the board.
Reporting race, ethnicity, or place of origin has ramifications on the community, and it’s not just the Chronicle that needs to be aware of what they report… and what they don’t.
Keeping score in the kitchen: crime and race
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I’ve never seen it as a need to keep score, (I have to go fast today, so this may not make much sense); I’ve seen what I call “open” reporting as a necessity for a complete view of what’s really happening. What you don’t know is that the Chronicle and the T.V. News outlets already greatly censor the news. How do I know that? I personally know people (investigative reporters) who work at the outlets who have been enraged at the fact that they aren’t allowed to report on a great many stories because of the race angle. And what you might ask is the race angle? It’s multifaceted but essentially a) they don’t want to stir up race related fears and hatreds, b) they grossly under report inter-racial crime unless it’s White on Black/Hispanic to avoid scaring people and c) they grossly under report crime occuring in and around business locations who support the outlets with advertizing. Now, having pointed that out, why is reporting on the race component important to the average citizen? Well, you’ld like to see it dropped apparently, but I think it’s important to know and be able to monitor whether or not crimes of violence against my ethnic group are escalating dangerously and by whom these crimes are being committed. Why, because everything in the U.S. is all about race because racial animosity is taught and trained, hearalded in song, (Rap) and fed like mother’s milk to many from an early age. There’s scant I can do about it; I don’t begrudge anyone because of it, but I’m painfully aware of the fact that there’s a whole lot of people out there who hate my guts and would cheerfully, nay gleefully do greivous harm to me and mine should they come to believe that the powers of be through neglect (benign or otherwise) have declared open season on my particular ethnic category. It would be really wonderful if all this would go away and everybody loved one another and we can all pretend to live in that bubble fantasy, but…………it ain’t happening in my lifetime, nor in my kids, or even in my grandkids lifetimes.
Interesting debate… if I recall, part of the debate has been that the Chronicle sometimes left out the race of wanted fugitives from their reporting, which leads me to the following tale:
When I was in Jr. High school, one day my mother came to pick me up. Or, rather, she came to pick my books/musical instrument up, as I was staying late for some sort of activity. I told her to be on the lookout for a tall male named “Steve” (I actually don’t remember the name) who would be wearing clothes matching a certain description. Needless to say, she was surprised when this pleasant young African-American male (actually, back then I think they were making the transition from “Negro” to “Black”) showed up at her car window with my stuff — it seems I forgot to tell her what color his skin was! I guess that is OK, though, because my parents never taught me about “White is Right” and all that nonsense, and in fact I went to a very integrated elementary school (yes, here in Houston – and in the days before court-mandated integration, to boot!)
Anyway, whenever I hear this topic being discussed, it reminds me of those days so long, long ago…
~EdT.
Glide —
You’re right that we’re race-obsessed in this country. I gather, then, that you’re saying because we are this way, there’s no point in trying to get at some of what’s keeping it all going.
You said:
That sounds (to me) as if you’re worried about race-related rioting or anarchy?
Obviously, I haven’t a clue about your racial or ethnic self-identification, any more than you have about mine… so there’s no telling which group your fears stem from. Therefore, I conclude that you’re advocating complete racial reporting in every instance: white, black, brown, yellow, purple, or green.
Have I interpreted correctly?
Polimom said:
Only report the purples in the event they are the victims of a Purple People-Eater.
~EdT.
That Campbell’s against reporting this type of information is old news; he’s been writing about it for quite a while. Reporting an accurate description in a news story is important both for the reasons you mentioned – criminals on the loose – and Glide put forth – it’s a dangerous world out there and we should have as many facts as possible to defend ourselves with. Facts are facts, aren’t they? There’s no use trying to hide them just because we don’t like what they say.
marc –
It is a dangerous world out there. So are you saying that reporting should therefore include, in every instance, the race or ethnicity, and origin of every criminal? What about the victims?
I’m trying to visualize how this should go. How’s this:
This is information that we need? What can one gain from this that’s useful?
(with apologies to anyone named John Smith)
I notice that race is not mentioned in all the news I read. The pattern seems to be more when either the name is not known of one of the people, or if race is believed to be a factor by someone interviewed, or if race may be a factor in the charges filed on somone, such as a hate crime possibility. If it really does have nothing to do with it, then race really tends not to be mentioned. Of course, they don’t really have to when the last name is there now do they? You will tend to make your own assumptions just from that. I don’t really see it as an issue of harm if they do mention it, but I do assume that when it is that there is a relevance to it.
I can’t say that I’ve read stories where I thought that they mentioned the race and it was weird that they did. Should they take it out all together when there is no subject at large? No. Because if it is a case where the name of someone involved is not known, or is not printed for security/privacy reasons, then all the info on that person that can be given is of use to me so that I might know if I would know that person.
If the story was just that “An asian-american woman was shot last night while working at …” then that information helps me to determine the possibility of me knowing the victim. It goes back to using all the identifiers you can when you can’t use the name. And as far as the place of origin, I think it is only really relevant info as far as where that person is living, so that it draws your interest. Somone listed as a Katy resident would get your attention more than one from a city where you don’t know anyone right? And as far as where “origionally from” I belive that is mentioned more if the person is just visitng the place they were killed, or if they had just moved here.
It is also just generally part of good journalism to ask all the questions you can about the people involved. The point of a story that is just reporting an event should never be to decide what information helps society. The point is just to report all the facts possible. The more space you have for a story, the more you print.
I posted a hypothetical piece in the column you refer. I did so to lighten the mood, PLUS show how a textbook story should read. Everything in it, including racial and eye description, (with the exception I left out height because I was re-writing from a book and screwed up) is according the Associated Press Style Book. It is, in fact, a reworded hypothetical IN the AP Stylebook.
The AP Stylebook goes on to explain race or even conventional racial features are REQUIRED in a complete suspect description along with any other outstanding characteristics such as extremely thin or obese “or two-heads.” You may remember a show called the Fugitive were the protagonist was always looking for the “one-armed man.” While today the PC line would be a “physically challenged individual,” a reporter must say that it is a he or she and not only that there is a missing arm but which one is missing.
In the hypothetical had the perpetrator been from anyplace OTHER than the location of the DATELINE, his last known permanent residence (LKPR) should be included. A DATELINE is included ONLY if the reported incident occurs in a location (EX: city) other than the place of the newspaper’s publication. Thus if there is no DATELINE and the story doesn’t indicate a LKPR, then the perpetrator and newspaper are from the same location- that being the newpaper’s publication point, for the Chronicle, it is Houston.
So let’s say the DATELINE was, BELLAIRE. If the story does not give a LKPR then he is from Bellaire. If his LKPR is Las Vegas, the story should say this. If his LKPR is unknown, this should be stated.
NOTE: that while there is a nationally more famous BELLAIRE located in California, that need not be specified as the local BELLAIRE is more accepted in the place of publication. However if the Chronicle’s DATELINE is MOSCOW, TX it should read such, as MOSCOW, RUSSIA takes dominance, and would read MOSCOW, with the exception if the newspaper’s publication point is Moscow, TX or in the county or a neighboring town. If the incident was in the Bellaire, the Bellaire Examiner need not use a dateline whereas the Houston Chronicle should.
All of these things are NOT choices a newspaper should be making. They are the accepted style that goes over the news wire. And while I’ll admit things change “the with times,” it does not mean they change for the better and it does not mean The Stylebook does at all.
By the way, just to show how things change, but stay the same, at the end of my story I put XXX . That is a notification to the receiver the article ends there as well as an indication to other newspaper people of the writers’ generation. If I was really, really old, such as famous frontier lawman and New York sports writer Bat Masterson, it would have been -..- -..- -..-
Which is Morse Code for XXX, a seldom used letter that was easily recognized and so adapted to separate one code transmission, or story filing, from another. As we left the Teletype keysets behind and with it Morse Code, reporters filed their stories on TTY with real letters, reporters (actually keytypists – nor typesetters which is a different job) began separating their stories with -..-XXX-..-. At sometime later, the extra “..” were left off for – – XXX – -. Then, in the late 1960s, different reporters started using a simple – – 30 – – at the end of the stories. In newspapers today, most stories filed over the paper’s LAN and now WAN end with “their 30” while oldtimers still use XXX or the almost dead use -..-XXX-..-
.
It’s not a matter of keeping score; it is about getting it all and getting it right.
What would people gain? Knowledge and the unbiased facts.
“We don’t have the right to tell them what it all means. It is our duty to give them all of the unvarnished facts and allow the reader to decide for themselves what it means.”
I guess that axiom is passé in today’s world where the truth is what others can spin it to be.
Lazarus, when have you read a story anywhere that included the “race” of a white person?
Also — how does one (journalist or otherwise) make a racial, ethnic, or cultural determination? Visually? That’s impossible much of the time, as Campbell’s comments demonstrated. Tiger Woods would be another example to consider… as would some branches of Polimom’s family.
And at what point does someone “from” elsewhere become part of the Dateline location, and thus no longer specified? A year? Ten years?
I hear what you’re saying — all of you. Somebody please tell me you see the problems I’m having with all this…
Polimom said:
OK… I see the problems you’re having with all this… and, to some extent, I even *agree* with you. I have often wished we could become more “color blind” as a society, and yes it can be aggravating when selective characteristics are emphasized.
I remember some 25 years ago (back when the KKK vs. the Vietnamese fishermen were a major topic) that one of the sort-of KKK members was discovered to be a member in a non-profit organization (specifically, Civil Air Patrol) that I also belonged to. For several months, it seemed that whenever possible, any story about a person committing horrific deeds (e.g. robbery, murder, rape, excessive jaywalking) included the following line at the end: “This person was a member of the Civil Air Patrol back in (date).” The trigger for this? The KKK/militia sympathizer complained that the story which ‘outed’ him cost him his position in CAP (the organization relieved him of command when they found out about the story, as there was the appearance of impropriety – sort of like being put on administrative leave during an investigation), the reporter started asking questions, and in accordance with CAP (and USAF) policy and directives (and on the advice of legal counsel) the CAP folks locally chose not to give an interview, instead issuing a series of press releases. The reporter (and editor) got really mad, and started their little campaign. As a result, a lot of our units lost (or were threatened with losing) their access to meeting places, and IIRC the CAP and USAF both sued the paper, and got an agreement with them to stop what they were doing. For the record, I don’t remember if it was the Chronicle or the Post that was involved – for some reason, I think it was the Post.
In any case, I mention this to indicate I am not just agreeing with you to be nice – I really have felt (in a way) the pain the “Katricians” are going through. I just don’t know how you effect the type of change in a society that you are proposing – though maybe talking about it is a good start.
BTW, at the risk of a long comment with beaucoup points: I think someone ought to take the term “Katrician” and adopt it as sort of a badge of honor. As I have mentioned elsewhere, one way to defuse anger is with humor – and I can see a market for “Katrician” T-shirts and other merchandise. And, I’ll bet that there were several stand-up comedians among those who came over here last year, they could generate some good routines if they put their minds to it. Besides, “Katronics” sounds so much kewler than “Cajun patois” 🙂
~EdT.
Ed, I agree with you. When a newspaper or reporting entity takes on itself to stop the unbiased reporting of news and starts adding and/or deleting things depending on whom/what they are reporting, nothing but bad things happen.
I was in the middle of an editorship when Roe vs. Wade came down. In the world, the question was “is it correct or not.” In the boardrooms and editors conferences it was “what do we call these people?”
A major split developed between old school liberal news people and new school, extreme liberal news people. This is also why I’m leery of many major media companies and the way they report things. I was in those fights, and know the reasons somethings are now reported one way, when it properly should be another. But I digress, and on a reply to Ed no less. *LOL*
Anywho, the new, very liberal wanted to call them “anti-abortion” and “pro-abortion.” The old school flinched and said, “no, you must approach the designation in a balanced manor.” You see, for the old school, “anti- and pro-“ brought up the specter of McCarthy’s allegations of Pro-Communist and Anti-Communist which ‘burned’ many media outlet. After years of wrangling the accepted style, print and electronic, became “Pro-abortion” and “Pro-life” but not without major damage done to a great institution, the Free American Press that of course no longer even exists.
Truly sad, as the Founding Fathers thought it important enough to protect it in the Bill of Rights but we didn’t think enough about it to support its viability.
I hate to keep harping on this but that is why a balanced stylebook is important.
Polimom says … when have you read a story anywhere that included the “race” of a white person? …
I see them all the time in local and smaller newspapers that still follow the AP Style Book. You take it from the police report or by asking questions of authorities. If you don’t find out for sure, you say that in the report. If you have picture of the subject, race or features shown, that can be seen, need not be reported.
People should keep a “permanent residence” listed according to federal guidelines. A reporter gives the suspects’ and in some cases, victims’, last known permanent residence.
One of the horrible changes in this new world of 24/7 cable news are reporters becoming “faux police “or “authorities” in many cases. That’s not their function but as the saying goes, “reporting blood pays better than keeping peace – and it’s safer.”
Polimom says … Somebody please tell me you see the problems I’m having with all this …
I see the confusion and I still believe it goes back to bad reporting. If ALL print reporters followed one stylebook as they did for years, the coverage would be constant. Once news reporting was chaos, changing from town to town, but a sort of order was brought by accepted standards when they had to share stories. But in the 1960s, the sharing got less and these “baby standards” were thrown out with the “baby bathwater” to be replaced with “what was cool and inoffensive” to some. The problem is almost everything is “offensive” to someone somewhere and reporting has returned to chaos from which it came.
When newspapers take it on themselves to change a style because someone finds it ‘politically incorrect’, the newspapers’ themselves become what are incorrect. And they fail the public in no longer presenting “all the news” by just presenting the part that doesn’t offend the “squeaky wheel.”
Maybe a bit of allegory : Years ago as a very young reporter, Bob Costas was doing a story on the great professional football coach Vincent Lombardi. He was interviewing Green Bay Packer legendary cornerback Herb Adderley and said, “That was a changing time in professional football, was Coach Lombardi a little racist being an older white coach?”
Adderley actually looked a little taken aback by the question before replying, “Coach Vince a racist? No, he treated all of us like ignorant son-of-a-b*tchs.”
That’s what a newspaper should do.
Pollimom said: “That sounds (to me) as if you’re worried about race-related rioting or anarchy?Obviously, I haven’t a clue about your racial or ethnic self-identification, any more than you have about mine… so there’s no telling which group your fears stem from. Therefore, I conclude that you’re advocating complete racial reporting in every instance: white, black, brown, yellow, purple, or green. Have I interpreted correctly?”
I’m not “overly concerned” with race related rioting or anarchy “today” but I do keep tabs on what’s going on and what particular group might be enraged to the point of random acts of violence because of some incident or bone-headed political comment. Just as I keep my eye on the news about the weather and the potential for disaster which might create an opportunity for the usual “loot’n shoot” response we see from numerous groups during times of disaster. More importantly, look at it this way. We all know that the various gangs have initiation rituals which typically involve acts of violence, often directed at particular classes of people. If you get a report that xyz gang is targeting women in the ABC neighborhood for “bump n’ jump”, (if you don’t know that’s where they intentionally bump your car from behind; that causes you to get out to exchange information, when you do they either club you/shoot you, take your money and your car), but the report contains no identifiers, just how helpful to you is that information, particularly if you have to travel through that neighborhood to get to work everyday? I mean, who is empowered to censor the news? Just give me the facts, don’t sugar coat it or worse, withhold valuable information! And if the MSM is censoring racial information why not location information; then the poor Joe looking for a new home won’t know NOT to buy in the most dangerous parts of town and that will be a good thing because we don’t want to “predjudice” a particular neighborhood! Too bad if Joe gets shot three weeks after moving in!
One last thing; don’t even for one moment fool yourself into thinking your Gov’t is going to protect you when something bad goes down; regardless of the colour of your skin, your Gov’t is not your friend! It’s grossly expensive, laughably inefficient and just as likely to hurt you as to help. And when the help comes, it’s too little too late and will be delivered in a hateful and predjucial manner.