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Gang Rape Story Lacked Balance (says NYT public editor)
New York Times ^ | March 11, 2011 | ARTHUR S. BRISBANE

Posted on 03/12/2011 3:22:24 AM PST by reaganaut1

The story quickly climbed The Times’s “most emailed” list but not just because of the sensational facts of the crime involved. “Vicious Assault Shakes Texas Town,” published on Tuesday, reported the gang rape by 18 boys and men of an 11-year-old girl in the East Texas town of Cleveland.

The viral distribution of the story was, at least in part, because of the intense outrage it inspired among readers who thought the piece pilloried the victim.

My assessment is that the outrage is understandable. The story dealt with a hideous crime but addressed concerns about the ruined lives of the perpetrators without acknowledging the obvious: concern for the victim.

While the story appeared to focus on the community’s reaction to the crime, it was not enough to simply report that the community is principally concerned about the boys and men involved – as this story seems to do. If indeed that is the only sentiment to be found in this community – and I find that very hard to believe – it becomes important to report on that as well by seeking out voices of professional authorities or dissenting community members who will at least address, and not ignore, the plight of the young girl involved.

Let’s consider the particulars:

The story by James C. McKinley Jr. reported that residents of the town noted the girl dressed “older than her age,” wore makeup and fashions “more appropriate to a woman in her 20s” and hung out with older boys at the playground.

The story also quoted one resident, saying, “Where was her mother? What was her mother thinking?”

Referring to some of the defendants in the case, the same resident was quoted saying, “These boys have to live with this the rest of their lives.”

(Excerpt) Read more at publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: clevelandtexas; nyt; rape
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To: verga

You say, “and the parents of these men/boys bear no responsibility for the upbringing of them. blame it all on the schools. The schools have them for 6 hours a day, 9 months a year for up to 13 years. Yeah blame them rather than the parents that actually gave birth to the little felons.”

I agree with you on that one. Schools are being held responsible for societal issues. The government pays welfare mothers to put out a dozen children whose only purpose in a classroom is to create chaos and, somehow, the schools are to blame. One major problem with FR is all the “home school” believers who seem to actually BELIEVE the schools created these problems. My children attend public school and don’t rape and pillage. If you want to home-school, then go ahead but stop being so blind as to who is to blame for societal issues.


61 posted on 03/12/2011 4:43:39 AM PST by onevoter
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To: reaganaut1

The NY times and MSM for that matter wouldn’t know balance if it bit it on the ass.


62 posted on 03/12/2011 4:46:38 AM PST by Altura Ct.
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

“I did not come here this evening to jump on an 11-year-old girl,” he said.

What an insidious lie!

Why is he even involved? Because he is trying to sow all kinds of seeds of doubt in the case. Another community organizer is making his mark.

Let the legal system proceed with the case and make the determination.


63 posted on 03/12/2011 4:47:08 AM PST by paint_your_wagon
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To: HiTech RedNeck

Obama exposed some racial divides that we were being told had disappeared; while some blacks are “grown up”, the fact that he has any support in the “African American community” after the destruction wrought on them as well in the past 30 months is disturbing. Apparently he could eat black children for 3 meals a day and still count on a significant number of black votes simply because he’s (half) black. When all other Americans are on the balls of their asses financially, I assure you the “pity” (actually condescension) is gone.


64 posted on 03/12/2011 4:47:26 AM PST by kearnyirish2
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To: Salamander

I don’t think you could pay me to actually go view the VMs (and I’m a guy). But it’s an illuminating insight into the world view of liberal women run wild and what they would do with the world if they could.

When God made women to be a help “meet” (or in modern language, “fit” or “suitable”) for men, He intended them to be quite a versatile and powerful help, far beyond the stereotyped world of “barefoot, pregnant, and ignorant.” You get scenarios like the last chapter of Proverbs about the valorous woman. She’s extending her husband’s power and honor into areas that he could not possibly “man” on his own — there aren’t enough hours in a day. And he is dearly grateful for it, and shows it.


65 posted on 03/12/2011 4:48:18 AM PST by HiTech RedNeck (Hawk)
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To: kearnyirish2

Good lord...how depressing.

On the flip side, I used to go to Asbury Park often back in the 80s and *always* got trapped in Newark on the way home.
[country bumpkin syndrome]...:)

Nobody would ever answer my pleas for directions and help getting *out*....except for one dear, elderly black man.

I even offered him money for his time....he wouldn’t hear of it.

He just said “You drive careful ma’am [I was only 19 and he had to be in his late 60s] and have a safe trip home”, God love him.


66 posted on 03/12/2011 4:49:06 AM PST by Salamander (I may be lonely but I'm never alone...and the nights may pass me by......but I never cry.)
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To: reaganaut1

Sometimes liberalism can come back to BITE YOU. In this case, the liberal baseline of ALWAYS blaming the victim and NEVER blaming the attackers didn’t pan out for them as it usually does.

One has to stretch the imagination quite far to blame an 11 year old for being gang-raped, for any reason, and even though the writers at the NYT had no problem with it, the libs that read the newspaper could not stomach it.

Not a whole lot different than when The Loser, in 1988, was asked if he would want the hypothetical rapist of his wife executed for the crime, during a debate against Bush-41 (the loser was big-time anti-death penalty). He said something like: “...as you know, I’ve always been against the death penalty...” and went on to explain why he opposed the death penalty. This was, perhaps, the most costly moment of his campaign (among several other doozies).

He was so detached from the real world and the concept of crimes having victims, that even the thought of his own wife being raped couldn’t register...instead his only concern about the poor rapists.


67 posted on 03/12/2011 4:50:00 AM PST by BobL (PLEASE READ: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2657811/posts)
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To: reaganaut1

FTA by Brisbane. “My assessment is that the outrage is understandable. The story dealt with a hideous crime but addressed concerns about the ruined lives of the perpetrators without acknowledging the obvious: concern for the victim.”

Brisbane discusses the outrage the readers have with James C. McKinley Jr original “report”; bear McKinley name in mind. Then Brisbane runs cover for McKinley; between them, they capsulize the NYT editorial and reportage philosophy/style.


68 posted on 03/12/2011 4:50:27 AM PST by BilLies (r)
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To: kearnyirish2

Well, I mean the self pity party (funny how when the charity gets thin, that goes away) but you’re right in some measure that over-deference does it too.


69 posted on 03/12/2011 4:51:39 AM PST by HiTech RedNeck (Hawk)
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To: reaganaut1
Gang Rape Story Lacked Balance (says NYT public editor)

He's right. There should have been an equal number of caucasian rapists involved in this perversion against an eleven year old child. Episodes like this make America seem more like the New South Africa!

70 posted on 03/12/2011 4:54:17 AM PST by IbJensen (Grab your pitchforks!)
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To: paint_your_wagon

He sure tossed his credibility out the window when he wondered aloud why it wasn’t viewed as a mixed-race rape. Who’s choosing to listen to the beat-your-mother-with-a-louisville-slugger faux-music? The hypothetical mixed-race rape is rarer than the dodo bird.


71 posted on 03/12/2011 4:55:54 AM PST by HiTech RedNeck (Hawk)
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To: Salamander

I’m not there, but concur.

We did have legal concealed carry decades before they did, though.

They beat us on castle law / no duty to retreat.


72 posted on 03/12/2011 4:56:24 AM PST by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: Lessthantolerant
Our society is doomed due to the level of stupidty in people under the age of 30!

Some things never change, do they?

73 posted on 03/12/2011 4:57:26 AM PST by Balding_Eagle (Overproduction, one of the top five worries of the American Farmer each and every year..)
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To: reaganaut1
From The Independent (UK) 2010:

A 2009 survey by the country's Medical Research Council found that one in four men admits to raping someone; while 62 per cent of boys over 11 believe that forcing someone to have sex is not an act of violence, with a third believing that girls enjoy rape. The government – led by President Jacob Zuma, who was tried for rape in 2006 – has been criticised for not tackling the problem and police and judicial failings have been highlighted.

74 posted on 03/12/2011 4:57:35 AM PST by IbJensen (Grab your pitchforks!)
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To: HiTech RedNeck

Oh, definitely.

Whether plowing the fields, tending the animals, carrying loads, she was to be his partner in every way.

I just listened to a sermon about how women treat their men in public nowadays...tearing them down rather than building them up.

I was raised to be a man’s “sidekick” from day one.

I was never treated as some feeble, inferior being.

Everything my dad did, I was expected to do....from baling hay, cleaning barns, butchering cows to hunting food.

I’m a very useful [if “oddball”] wife, now...LOL

[wanna see my wood shop tools or go “pop can plinking”?]

Most farm girls are raised that way.

We had no time for ‘the vapors’.

If a calf or foal was breeched, you had to get that thing turned around and outta there...in your best Sunday dress, if need be.

LOL


75 posted on 03/12/2011 4:58:02 AM PST by Salamander (I may be lonely but I'm never alone...and the nights may pass me by......but I never cry.)
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To: golux
I say that this is what you get when, through the dummying down of public schools
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

It can only continue to get worse.

If children attend government schools they **WILL**WILL** WILL** learn to think and reason GODLESSLY. At best they will learn to compartmentalize their faith.

Generation after generation of Americans have now been thoroughly indoctrinated in how to think and reason in a godless secular worldview, at least since my grandmother's day ( born 1894)

At their very best, when the first modern government schools opened in the mid-1800s, they offered up a generic and lukewarm Protestantism. We know what Christ does with the lukewarm. He spits them out of His mouth!

76 posted on 03/12/2011 4:58:23 AM PST by wintertime
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To: Salamander

There certainly are good people stuck in those areas; a lot of the older blacks in Newark back then had migrated from the South when our cities had a lot of jobs to offer. They themselves did fairly well, but their children (totally disconnected from their Southern roots) were nightmares. Many of the older blacks I worked with back in the 80s were caring for their grandchildren as drugs and crime obliterated that next generation. Very sad; these were hard-working people, nearing retirement, and starting over raising grandchildren (who were starting to encounter the same pitfalls their parents had).

I saw Asbury Park listed on a website of ghost towns - too funny! Twenty years ago they were telling us how it would come back because perverts would make it a “gay Mecca” (even they weren’t stupid enough to present the savages with such targets of opportunity); I see on the website pictures of building that were never completed as reality set in. It showed stretches of boardwalk and strips along the beach, completely deserted...


77 posted on 03/12/2011 4:58:36 AM PST by kearnyirish2
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To: HiTech RedNeck

I see what you mean.

A few months ago I saw someone refer to the Democratic Party as the “Pity Party”; it was brilliant!


78 posted on 03/12/2011 5:00:12 AM PST by kearnyirish2
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To: FreedomPoster

Our law pretty much just allows to “be alarmed” by somebody.
No fear of lawsuits forthcoming from survivors, at all.

It rocks...:))


79 posted on 03/12/2011 5:01:09 AM PST by Salamander (I may be lonely but I'm never alone...and the nights may pass me by......but I never cry.)
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To: Sarah-bot

It’s not about the story being REPORTED!!!! It’s HOW the story was reported!! You awake yet????????????????


80 posted on 03/12/2011 5:06:51 AM PST by Doc Savage ("I've shot people I like a lot more,...for a lot less!" Raylan Givins)
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