Posted on 05/18/2007 8:00:30 PM PDT by fgoodwin
Media criticized over Tenn. slayings
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070518/ap_on_re_us/knoxville_slayings_media
http://tinyurl.com/36kmmj
By DUNCAN MANSFIELD, Associated Press Writer
Fri May 18, 5:15 PM ET
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - In a powerful demonstration of the way the Internet has opened up the mainstream media to intensive second-guessing, bloggers are charging that news outlets have ignored the rape and murder of a young Knoxville couple because of the racial implications of the story.
The two victims were white; the five defendants are black.
The critics include mainstream conservatives, such as the National Review, and white supremacists. They have drawn comparisons to the Duke lacrosse rape case and wondered why the killings of Channon Christian, a 21-year-old University of Tennessee student, and her 23-year-old boyfriend Christopher Newsom are not getting the same attention from what the bloggers regard sneeringly as the liberal media.
"Oh, that's right, the victims were WHITE!" several conservative blogs have observed.
Or as National Review columnist Jack Dunphy commented online: "Uh oh, we're not supposed to talk about such things, are we."
It was bloggers who undermined CBS anchorman Dan Rather's 2004 report about President Bush's National Guard service, digging up evidence that the documents may have been forgeries. The next year, CNN chief Eason Jordan resigned after bloggers jumped all over him for supposedly saying that some journalists killed in Iraq by the U.S. military had been targeted. Last year, bloggers figured out that a Reuters photo showing the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike on Beirut had been doctored.
Local media in Knoxville have covered developments in the carjacking case since the bodies were found, and The Associated Press ran stories that were transmitted nationally. But the killings have received scant attention from other media outlets.
"The Internet has been basically chastising the mainstream media now, it seems, since the Internet opened up," said Aly Colon at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank in St. Petersburg, Fla.
"I mean, as soon as somebody had an electronic Internet megaphone, the opportunity to throw brickbats at the media just got amplified from the backyard-over-the-fence to an e-mail or a blog. That isn't necessarily new, but I think what you are witnessing may be is an increasing amount of that taking place."
Christian and Newsom were last seen Jan. 6. They were carjacked as they were leaving a friend's apartment. Newsom's shot and burned body was found the next day along the railroad tracks, and Christian's corpse was discovered two days later in a trash can at a house rented by one of the defendants. Both had been sexually assaulted. Household cleaner had been poured in her mouth to remove evidence, according to court records.
Some Internet postings have suggested the killings should be treated as a hate crime. But Police Chief Sterling Owen said: "We have no evidence to support the notion that this was a race-based crime. We see this as a cold-blooded murder."
Similarly, claims made over the Internet that the couple were sexually mutilated are "absolutely not true," John Gill, special assistant to District Attorney Randy Nichols, said Friday.
Christian's father, Gary Christian, wore a Confederate flag T-shirt to the first hearing for one of the defendants and then pointed at the man as if firing a gun. But family lawyer Joe Costner said Channon Christian's parents have repeatedly said they do not believe their daughter's killing was race-related.
Lemaricus Davidson, 25; his brother, Letalvis Cobbins, 24; George Thomas, 24; and Cobbins' former girlfriend, Vanessa Coleman, 18, are charged with murder. A fifth defendant, Eric Boyd, 34, is being held on a federal charge of being an accessory after the fact, accused of helping Davidson.
The victims did not know the attackers and were just "at the wrong place at the wrong time," Gill said.
The four murder defendants will be given separate trials, beginning next May. Prosecutors have yet to say whether they will seek the death penalty.
Among the bloggers who have questioned the media coverage is country singer Charlie Daniels.
"I am not going to call it reverse racism," said Daniels, who has written on his Web page about how little he has heard of the case in Nashville, about 150 miles west of Knoxville. "But I will say it is very selective.
"There are probably not five stories in the country that could possibly have been more important than that one during the time it was going on," he said. "It is totally, completely unfair to the memory of these young people not to inform people about what happened to them."
More than a dozen e-mails to the Cleveland Plain Dealer in recent weeks have raised similar concerns, reader representative Ted Diadiun said. "Why are you guys covering this up?" they ask.
Diadiun said that based on the AP stories, it appeared that the crime was horrible but not substantially different from ones that "regrettably occur all over the country every day."
Glenn Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor who operates Instapundit, a current events blog, said he was branded an apologist after he wrote that he had seen no evidence the killings were a hate crime.
However, he said: "I think it is totally true if the races of the perpetrators and the victims were reversed, the press would make a bigger deal about it. I think some people have been hanging back for fear of inflaming things."
Ted Gest, president of the Criminal Justice Journalists group, a national organization of reporters who cover crime, courts and prisons, said interracial crime tends to get more coverage than when the criminal and victim are of the same race.
"But I can't say that this one would have had any more coverage if five whites had been accused of doing these things to two blacks, absent a blatant racial motive," he said. "As bad as this crime is, the apparent absence of any interest group involvement or any other `angle' might also explain the lack of coverage."
. . , yup , you’re correct , I saw it ! !!! ,... BUT . . .
... it was in the segment titled BYA ( Because You Asked ) , someone had to ask even FoxNews to run this story !!!!
oh , btw , a report on “The Wayward Whales” preceded this story , and got more time as a segment , and more of a sypathetic “tone”
The AP is attempting to cover up its evil by implying that the conservative blogging community are Aryan Nation White Supremicist Neo-Nazis for wanting this story told.
All the witnesses who could testify to about the racial motivations of the murderers are dead.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=carrbrothers
“claims made over the Internet that couple were sexually mutilated are “absolutely not true” I guess that makes the whole thing ok then. According to the sick bastards at AP.
The MSM not only ignores the story they try to cover it up.
No it's not redundant. Lefties normally are soft on crime, and they are quick to rationalize even the most brutal crimes so long as there is a politically correct combination of criminals and victims. Lesser crimes like robbery are rationalized as being social justice. Lefties only want hefty punishment for violent crimes if there are the correct victim groups, hence they push for "hate crimes" legislation that will be unevenly enforced.
Absolutely! I’m sure body burning, mutilation and drain cleaner is an act of love. Just when was the last high profile black on white hate crime? You know the kind that gets 24/7 attention and goes on for weeks on end. Lead story on every TV station and newspaper with pundits like Jesse Jackson & Al Sharpton being interviewed for there morality in all thing racial about what whites should do to show repentance. Damn PC government officials. Thank God for the internet. It is time for white people to take the damn blinders off.
This sentence “the opportunity to throw brickbats at the media just got amplified from the backyard-over-the-fence to an e-mail or a blog.”, doesn’t seem to fit the context that the internet is exposing the lying, leftest media.
There was also the case out west that involved a young white couple and black killers, they tortured them to death. It is not a resolved case as of yet I don't think.
The bloggers regard sneeringly accurately describe as the liberal media. The bloggers regard it sneeringly as the Drive By media.
Sick sick sick
Amen!
This is a national shame!!!
Horror in Knoxville update: Victims families’ speak
By Michelle Malkin · May 22, 2007 08:08 AM
Continuing to follow the Christian/Newsom murder story, local TV station VLT8 has a new video interview with the family of Chris Newsom. Watch here.
The events of January 8th, 2007 turned the lives of two families upside down...
A young couple, 21-year-old Channon Christian and 23-year-old Christopher Newsom were brutally murdered when five suspects allegedly carjacked, raped and killed them. Volunteer TV spoke with Christopher’s family on Monday who say even four and a half months later...losing their son is still no easier to deal with.
“He just really enjoyed life and that’s what hurts so bad that his life was taken away and he was way too young for that,” Mary Newsom says.
As Chris Newsom’s parents imagine what may have happened one fateful day in January...
“I sit in that chair at night and look over at that picture and I just cry... tears roll down my cheeks... I think of what they did to him... him just laying there burned,” Mary says.
They lean on each other... reading each other’s thoughts... finishing the other’s sentences...
“Both of them suffered... tremendously... they had to... in their last hours of life,” Hugh & Mary Newsom say.
As they support each other... they are also supporting a promise they both made to Chris in death.
“I would be present when any one of those animals made their appearance. I would be there to represent him and I intend to keep that promise,” Hugh says.
Channon Christian’s family also spoke out:
For the first time since their daughter’s murder, the family of Channon Christian is speaking out about their grief.
Police say 22-year-old Channon Christian and her boyfriend, Christopher Newsom, were carjacked, kidnapped, tortured, and murdered this past January.
That night the couple was having dinner and watching a movie at a friend’s apartment off Washington Pike. It is the last time they were heard from.
Channon’s father, Gary Christian, says he was the last one to speak to his daughter. She called home just after midnight, telling them she was going to be late.
“I said. ‘Alright, be careful, and I love you.’ That’s the last thing she said to me, that she loved me,” he said.
Gary and Dina Christian say life has been a living hell since that last phone call...
...The family has religiously attended every court hearing. Gary says it’s the only thing he can do now to honor his daughter’s memory.
He talked about how tense he gets when the accused killers are brought in. “That’s pure hate. That ain’t tense. I mean, they took our baby girl.”
He refers to the suspects as a pack of “wild animals.”
“It’s no different from hunting back in East Texas, sitting in a deer stand and looking at a pack of wild dogs. They just bring them in one at a time,” he says.
The Christian family says it hopes the prosecutor seeks the death penalty.
John Leo in the NYSun today covers the case, blog coverage, and the politics of news. John remembers the double standards in coverage of the awful Jesse Dirkhising case, which I also covered in 2001.
http://www.nysun.com/article/54934
The Newsom family is requesting prayers.
http://michellemalkin.com/index.htm
We’ve got to keep this on the net!
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