Media myths about the Jena 6 (A local journalist tells the story you haven't heard)

Christian Science Monitor ^ | October 24, 2007 | Craig Franklin

[RWR8189]

By now, almost everyone in America has heard of Jena, La., because they've all heard the story of the "Jena 6." White students hanging nooses barely punished, a schoolyard fight, excessive punishment for the six black attackers, racist local officials, public outrage and protests – the outside media made sure everyone knew the basics.

There's just one problem: The media got most of the basics wrong. In fact, I have never before witnessed such a disgrace in professional journalism. Myths replaced facts, and journalists abdicated their solemn duty to investigate every claim because they were seduced by a powerfully appealing but false narrative of racial injustice.

I should know. I live in Jena. My wife has taught at Jena High School for many years. And most important, I am probably the only reporter who has covered these events from the very beginning.

The reason the Jena cases have been propelled into the world spotlight is two-fold: First, because local officials did not speak publicly early on about the true events of the past year, the media simply formed their stories based on one-side's statements – the Jena 6. Second, the media were downright lazy in their efforts to find the truth. Often, they simply reported what they'd read on blogs, which expressed only one side of the issue.

The real story of Jena and the Jena 6 is quite different from what the national media presented. It's time to set the record straight.

Myth 1: The Whites-Only Tree. There has never been a "whites-only" tree at Jena High School. Students of all races sat underneath this tree. When a student asked during an assembly at the start of school last year if anyone could sit under the tree, it evoked laughter from everyone present – blacks and whites. As

[DakotaRed]

Never let truth get in the way of the race baiters, Civil rights leaders urge DC march

[cherry]

well, you all will be happy to know that the trial of Orange Taylor, the black student accused of raping and killing a white college girl was declared a mistrial, partly because one black woman couldn't convict....

this Orange guy states that she was already dead, so he just raped her ( pulled her tampoon out and flung it across the room) and left her there half naked, and never called the police...oh, and stole a few items as well....

somehow, the two holdouts...one black...not sure about the other....thought that the girl just took her bottom clothes off, pulled up her shirt, put a pillow over her face, and pulled her tampoon out and tossed it across the room, and just upped and died.......

I am so sick of our two tier justice system....blacks won't convict black men of anything...especially rape or killing of a white girl....

I believe we will see someday true vigilantes....

[carumba]

Comrades, comrades we can all agree that Pravda was good for the bird cages.

[sport]

Bump

[sport]

Wrong. The reason the media told the Jena 6 lies is that they seek to undermine American unity and self-confidence in order to bring about socialistic world government.

5 posted on 10/23/2007 11:17:05 PM PDT by rogue yam

Your reply cannot be said loud or often enough. Every word you say is true.

[Rocky]

Good article. Just like the Duke case, if we just wait, the truth eventually comes out. Unfortunately, as the article says, the media does not apologize for their biased reporting. They just move on.

[Gondring]

rogue yam>Wrong. The reason the media told the Jena 6 lies is that they seek to undermine American unity and self-confidence in order to bring about socialistic world government.

Before you go jumping onto that horse, consider...

DoughtyOne>What bothers me is how many posters on this forum trashed the white students and essentially gave a pass to the Jena 6.

Does anyone think that all those FReepers are pushing for a socialistic world order?* Obviously not, which illustrates why so many in the media reported the what they did...because of poor (lazy) primary reporting and the propagation of the partial story that was available at first. It wasn't any idea of dividing America or other nonsense...it was that the reporters on the scene believed the race-baiters out of laziness and stupidity and the great story it made, and the downstream papers had nothing else upon which they could rely.

As Bernard Goldberg pointed out in Bias, there's no organized conspiracy among all the journalists out there. There are left-leaning tendencies of individuals, and low enough salaries that you don't get many highly logical or investigatory-minded recruits, so the net effect is one of bias, even if it's not organized.

*well, other than the neocons ;-)

[Gondring]

We lived in an unusual corridor, where we could hear the pure news alerts from the AP & UPI before they made the evening news. I was shocked at the story on the TV, having heard the unedited stories earlier in the day.

As a former editor-in-chief (yes, that was the title...no AP style at our papers! :-), I can confirm how shocking this can be...to see the raw feeds and then realize that what makes it into the paper is so different. Often, that isn't malicious...it's just reporting what the readers are interested in. But when you have dishonest editors, it can mean a distorted picture of the news.

One of my favorite (albeit geeky) pasttimes in grad school was to have an acquaintance watch C-Span with me all day while we studied...and then watch CNN in the evening to see how they reported what had happened. A typical response I got was: "But...but...but...that's NOT what happened!" ...and I would just say, "I rest my case on liberal bias in the news media." :-)

[Gondring]

But after so much complaining on this thread about the distortions of the MSM, you're illustrating that FReepers can be just as bad.

somehow, the two holdouts...one black...not sure about the other....thought that the girl just took her bottom clothes off, pulled up her shirt, put a pillow over her face, and pulled her tampoon out and tossed it across the room, and just upped and died.......

For example, the holdouts did not claim that she "pulled her tampon out and tossed it across the room"...the holdout who spoke after the trial said that it was because the victim's DNA was not found on it (i.e., presumably, the prosecutors had not proven that the tampon was hers). While this is silly and a misunderstanding of "reasonable doubt," IMHO, the fact is that you misrepresented her position. She felt that the prosecution had simply not made the case.

Codrington said she could not, and did not, find Orange Taylor III innocent.

She found him not guilty. And the two, she said, are not the same.

At least she understands that very important principle.

[A_Tradition_Continues]

It’s a little hard for me to believe that the high schoolers who hung the nooses weren’t at all aware of the symbolism of nooses in the South, though.

I'm an 18 year old male that graduated with Honors this past June. I attended both private and public schools in Texas from 2000 until graduation. (BTW...I received my Associates Degree two weeks after I graduated from High School and currently enrolled @ Purdue University.) I guess I'm a candidate for the short bus. I had no idea that a hangman's noose was symbolic for something other than a means of execution. I've never associated a hangman's noose with racism.

I have made some observations over the past several years. I've made numerous trips to places like Chicago, New York, and Boston. Racism is alive and well in the northern midwest, the Atlantic coast and New England. It appears the South surpassed the North some time ago in race relations...it's just the media was never officially notified. And how can we mention race and/or racism without mentioning the ilk of Jesse Jackson. If it were not for the South poor ol' Jesse wouldn't have a stage and the media whores lusting after his every word. (I think Jesse's afraid to stay at home with all the black on black and black on white crime that occurs in Chicago on a daily basis.)

I guess from now on when I see anything similiar to a noose I'll think of racism or when I see an open fire I'll think of Salem Ma.

[azhenfud]

That’s okay. When Jesse and Al got involved, the town of Jena, La was vindicated before all the world.

[DoughtyOne]

I don’t know. I think it was an insult to bird poop. LOL

I know the LA Times is.

[Jabba the Nutt]

The Jena 6: This year’s Duke rape case.

[DoughtyOne]

I could believe that the members of media and the posters were both lazy, but after having the facts pointed out to the forum participants, I had to accept at one point that there was some very suspect agenda driving the opinions.

Some of these folks had to have had some sort of vested interest in propigating the theory that racism must be a factor, or they were just shockingly unable to reason.

[elk]

This reminds me of the ABC News Fabricator (I believe it was ABC) who was on-air in a canoe somewhere, talking about the horrific flooding, when 2 guys in boots walked in front of her, revealing the ankle-deep “flood.”

[Bon mots]

    Telling you what to think since 1980

---

[DoughtyOne]

I saw that. What a fraud. Good call...

There was flooding, but that photo op sure turned on her. It was one of the funiest moments in broadcast news I’ve seen.

[sportutegrl]

Even if they knew the significance of the nooses, the most you can say about this is that they were making a statement. As such this is considered free speech. Freedom of speech is not just for unoffensive stuff, or we wouldn't’t have flag burnings and insults to Christianity.

[RVN Airplane Driver]

Thank you for posting this. I confess to not following this very closely. It’s a little hard for me to believe that the high schoolers who hung the nooses weren’t at all aware of the symbolism of nooses in the South, though.

A couple of months ago I put up a clothes line and my 9 year old Grandson asked me: "Grandpa, what's that"? So as hard as it is to believe about the nooses.....it could be true!!

[Leftism is Mentally Deranged]

“The reason the media told the Jena 6 lies is that they seek to undermine American unity and self-confidence in order to bring about socialistic world government.”
finally another poster sees the same thing that I do.