Gentlemen prefer whites

[kingandy]

It's important to listen to the news, and think about what they're saying. It's not uncommon, for example, to hear something like "X has been attacked for saying..." or "Y's statement has caused controversy..." But who are these people? How have they attacked X?

According to Radio 1 Newsbeat: "The top policeman in London's Metropolitan force has been criticised for saying he couldn't understand the level of interest in the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman."

Who's he been criticised by? Well, the Media, obviously.

The full story is not that he's shocked it was so high profile, but rather that he's surprised that other murders are more or less ignored. And, in particular, it was in response to a question about whether police resources are distributed as reflected in the media. Naturally the Media are outraged that they could possibly be accused of picking and choosing the stories they cover, so less than 24 hours later he's apologising.

Newsbeat goes on to mention, "Critics say there's been just as much interest in other major crimes, regardless of the race of the victims." It does not say who these critics are. I strongly suspect they are people around the Newsbeat office.

Comments

[stsquad.livejournal.com]

The sad fact is the rare random stranger pedophile that kidnaps and kills a child gets all the publicity but the vast majority of children who are abused do so at the hands of people in their own family or close to them.

But that doesn't make sensational news :-(

[renniek.livejournal.com]

I was reading about that this morning. The one that I found very shocking was that the same day that young lawyer was killed recently, a father-of-two was dragged out of his car and murdered, and another man was also murdered. Yet these last 2 didn't rate a mention in the news, whereas the young lawyer chap was in headlines all over the place. The young lawyer was white, and the other 2 victims weren't, so Ian Blair was wondering whether this was due to institutionalised racism within the media. Unfortunately, the original story now seems to have vanished beneath all the furore over his comments about the Soham murders, which (I felt on reading them) were clearly intended to highlight the differences in media treatment of child deaths, and not to cause any offence to the bereaved parents.

[kingandy]

Yes - he's quoted in the initial article as saying "It was a dreadful crime, nobody is suggesting anything else. But there are other dreadful crimes which do not become the greatest story in Britain..."

I have to say, I think the prominence of the Soham murders was more to do with the age of those involved (or, more likely, a combination of age, race and gender) - after all, the Damilola Taylor trial is quite well-covered at the moment. That said, it is overshadowed by the Big Brother evictions.