A word about much of the media’s handling of the alleged rape case involving members of Duke University’s lacrosse team: disgusting.
What tabloid TV and talk radio, with the help of provocateurs such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson, are making of what should be a local story in North Carolina risks sending some terrible messages, such as that rape accusations routinely are invented and racially motivated; that the “boys will be boys” defense goes double if the boys are white, wealthy and athletic and the prosecutor is a Democrat; and that jumping to conclusions about a case’s sociological and legal implications is justified if its details are juicy enough, never mind that old saw about the presumption of innocence.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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28 Comments
Does the name Tawana Brawley ring a bell? This is just another hate crimes hoax, of course most are!
V.L.R.B!!
Ian, your a clown.
You mean for every Susan Smith and similar made up real crimes.
Who takes the racial bait and makes it swirl more in the toilet bowl of opinion. Some stories aren’t worth remembering or so shocking the lessons shouldn’t be forgotten.
Smith drowned her kids. Brawley just made some noise about a fake crime in a lawsuit scheme.
Men do it. Guy shoots his wife to death in Boston, but it wasn’t his “kind”. Of course it was, the murdering kind when he was sent to prison and the Boston police with shame on them for searching around and capturing “suspects”. A “kind” of suspects just because of their color of skin.
The runaway bride mentioned her bent views about kidnappers wasn’t truthful. A made up person is hardly ever same color as the accuser with the fake story.
The media is all about sales. Crucify suspects in headlines. Guilty in the articles until not proven guilty in a court of law.
The media will out a person’s complete life history just because of accusations.
If someone offered their life history to the paper or TV news for publication it wouldn’t be printed.
Media calling for presumption of innocence is a joke. There is no way our Eagle wouldn’t write the same headlines.
You know, Rhonda, I suspect the silence you’re hearing might–just might–be the sound of agreement.
I don’t have anything to add.
Good point about the presumption of innocence. We all know that something happened and somebody conducted a crime, but who?
Once indicted, the verdict of public opinion on high profile cases is always that they are automatically guilty. If they are found not guilty for any reason, their lives are still changed forever.
I let it play out int he courts and I can’t stand watching the media blitz behind any case, either it be O.J., Scott Petterson, Michael Jackson, BTK, Missing Aruba girl, and Duke Lacross team.
I think the best thing to do is let the justice system take care of it. My opinion on the case or the presumption of guilt doesn’t mean anything. I don’t want to pay attention, but I’m sure it will be in my face until the trial ends.
Lots of twists and turns on this case. Man, was I surprised at the DNA results. The prosecutor seems to have an axe to grind in this case. This is going to be in the news because it has all the juicy stuff; sex, race, money, and politics.
Joe called it right. Probably best to just let it play out in the courts.
Disgusting Rhonda? Maybe… but the media loves to sensationalize events of little importance! Take Bennifer, Brangelina and TomKat for instance; who cares if Cruise wanted to eat the placenta? That is REALLY GROSS… way too much information for me!! Why do you report trash like that?
Back to court cases….It really makes me wonder.. do they have to put the jurors in isolation these days? Otherwise, how in the world can anyone get a fair trial after they have factored in all the spin the media has reported on the case?
Disgusting? Try the Eagle-Beacon and KAKE-TV’s 30-year love affair with the BTK killer, climaxing in a year-long orgy of nightly top stories and daily front-page coverage. But now the public’s right to know is almost sated and we know what breakfast cereals Dennis Rader likes to eat and the composition of the lint in his belly button.
Are you going to take down your “Special” Section on THE BTK STRANGLER anytime soon, Rhonda? Pot, meet kettle.
I agree with Rhonda. I suspect that the DA has a real mess on his hands and felt that he HAD to charge somebody – ANYBODY – regardless of evidence. IF this is as trumped-up as it is beginning to seem then his troubles might just be beginning.
Meanwhile, closer to home …
http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/local/crime_courts/14384104.htm
Foulston drops murder chargeBY RON SYLVESTERThe Wichita EagleSurgio Johnson left jail Wednesday, three months after a judge ruled that the district attorney had no case for murder.
Johnson, 25, spent nine months in the Sedgwick County Jail, based on the changing stories of one witness who tried to barter the testimony for his own freedom.
That witness, Kenneth Junious, remains in prison until 2007 on a probation violation. Johnson, a barber, walked free after Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston dropped the charge of second-degree murder.
The case against Johnson fell apart in January, when a judge ruled there was misconduct by a prosecutor in Foulston’s office.
District Judge David Kaufman said on the eve of trial that prosecutors made false threats of prison to intimidate Junious into testifying; he had changed his story three times and repeatedly refused to take the stand.
We get the news we want, not the news we deserve. The media jumps on this because…. wait for it….WE WANT IT!!!!!! In fact, WE DEMAND IT!!!!!
If rita cosby’s audience wasnt obsessed with missing white women, she would go off the air and leave a blissful vacancy. If nancy grace and dan abrams didnt get high ratings with this baloney, they would also be off the air.
Sadly, the media is more of a reflection of us than we are a reflection of the news. We create them, they do not create us.
Just like we voted in these incompetent incumbents at all levels of government. Dont like it? Then look in the mirror. They reflect us, we dont reflect them. We get the news, and the elected officials we want.
If we werent listening and buying trash, they wouldnt be writing and broadcasting trash.
“Good point about the presumption of innocence. We all know that something happened and somebody conducted a crime, but who?” Am I the only one that sees the irony in this statement from Joe? How is it that we “know” somebody conducted a crime? If you’ll allow me to generalize, I think this statement says a lot about the psychology of our society and the impact of the media. Even those of us who pride ourselves on remaining impartial often can’t see the line between fact and hearsay. It’s as if the media’s reporting enters our psyche through osmosis and permanantly alters our sense of objectivity.
The prosecutor Is up for re-election in the upcoming few months…Need I say more?And look how all of you clowns in the press and the bimbo DA handled the BTK stuff…Give me a break.
And dont forget the number one rule of BTK press conferences.
Never stand between phill klein and a tv camera.
THAT is the most dangerous place in the world.
Confused, you are not a bushie are you? I mean, blaming the media is the preznit’s go to line. After, of course “it’s hard work”.
“It’s as if the media’s reporting enters our psyche through osmosis and permanantly alters our sense of objectivity.”
Maybe our utter inabilility to have a sense of objectivity is not the fault of the media. Maybe it is the result of our great kansas educations. I mean, it worked! We just believe what we are told.
Of course, we could always choose to be different, but I think “choice” is a really dirty word for the wingnut crowd that makes up at least 70% of the kansas population.
And all the sensationalism is on the “liberal” side.
Pay no attention to this man with his audience of millions–
On April 17, nationally syndicated radio host Michael Savage called for “kill(ing) 100 million” Muslims and referred to the woman who alleged she was raped by members of Duke University’s lacrosse team as a “drunken slut stripping whore.”
. . . .
Savage also referred to the alleged Duke rape victim as “a drunken slut stripping whore accusing men of raping her when there is absolutely no evidence of such a rape other than what comes out of that filthy mouth of hers.” He later asked: “What kind of system do we have that anyone can scream rape and not have to show her face?” adding, “This is all the product of the out-of-control lesbian feminist movement.” Echoing previous comments he has made about the alleged rape victim, Savage said, “The Durham dirt-bag case disgusts me to my core.”
http://mediamatters.org/items/200604190001
And so it appears that not all of the media is presuming guilt for the Duke Lacrosse players.
Michael Savage in all his compassion is doing just the opposite.
I’m just guessing on these statistics, but I bet that for every lied about rape, about 100 go unreported. Maybe that should be the story instead.
Still, you have to question the judgement of showing up in the middle of the night intoxicated at a private residence to strip in front of a bunch of drunk jocks. Now I don’t know the details of this incident, but there’s a risk level here I really have to question. I call this some very risky behaviour. Of course a woman has a right to do what ever she wants with her body, but red meat shaken in front of carnivores has a tendency to get eaten.
Maybe there was a rape…maybe not. I want to see the evidence, and not a political campaign by the prosecutor.
I agree that there was a rush to judgement here on both sides.
But gosh XXX, do you think when those drunk jocks hired her, they should have given her a warning statement that said “oh by the way, if you shake it good enough, we reserve the right to rape you”?
Or maybe a warning that “we have no self control and can not behave like civilized people, so you should know that there is a danger of rape if you dance for us”?
“you have to question the judgement of showing up in the middle of the night intoxicated at a private residence to strip in front of a bunch of drunk jocks”
Yes, that is a stupid thing to do. But with all due respect, that also sounds an awful lot like “she was asking for it” which is usually the cops’ line right after “are you sure it wasnt consensual?”
If those drunk jocks couldnt control themselves, they should never have SOLICITED a stripper. I dont think she was knocking on doors that night just searching for some guys to seduce. They invited her. And begged her to return AFTER she walked out.
And if she had turned them down earlier, do you think they would have just hired another potential rape victim, er, another dancer? Another stripper? I bet they went right down the phone book.
They asked her there to dance. She agreed. When did rape become part of the agreement?
Why is this hoax getting national media attention when the news of the carr brotha’s crimes didn’t make it out of the state? I thought so!!!!!
“..The only reason this story could possibly be noteworthy is because it brings up the possibility of a crime that is so rare as to be almost unheard of: white gang rape of black women. Yet the opposite situation, the black gang rape of white women is so common that it gathers little news attention.
The actual truth about the danger of interracial rape is not prejudice; it is reality. Every year there are about 15,000 black-on-white rapes, but fewer than 900 white-on-black rapes. Each year there are 3,000 gang rapes of whites by blacks and too few white gang rapes of blacks to show up in the statistics. That is 8 gang rapes of white women PER DAY!!!!! Eight!!! Compared to nearly ZERO by white men annually. That means that if there is any truth to this fabrication at Duke then we are talking about an incident that is so rare that it can be of no significance to anyone but the people involved.
Another addendum to this absurd incident is the constant complaining by blacks and their apologists that if this was about black men raping white woman there would be more attention paid to it, as if there could possibly be any more attention than it is now getting.
And would someone please pay attention to those 15,000 rapes!!!! 15,000! Annually! That is over 40 rapes committed by black men against white women each day. And these numbers only reflect those crimes that are reported. That means there are many, many, more that actually occur and certainly go unpunished. This means that black men are effectively waging a war on white people by raping our women. And it doesn’t stop there.
Everybody already knows that blacks make up over 60% of the nation’s prison population but only about 12% of the general population. But did you also know that blacks kill about 12 white people each day? How about the fact that blacks are as much more dangerous than whites as men are more dangerous than women? Or that blacks commit violent crimes at four to eight times the white rate? And there is more black-on-white than black-on-black violent crime. Blacks even commit more HATE crimes then white people…”http://www.castefootball.us/viewarticle.asp?sportID=14&teamID=0&ID=22942
Viva La Raza Blanco!!!
“our women?”
Your more than a clown, that’s complete idioticy.
When you claim group ideology among one “race” of people and other’s are inferior or more prone to crime in your bent views, its a fantasy.
Not all whites are the same and they’ll tell you that.If your hate doesn’t extend to your own “kind” then there is no help for you, even an argument is pointless.
It’s a political tool to use statistics, it helps win elections.Keep the folks seperated, its serves a purpose.
Somebody wants you to spout such things to benefit the group. Racists are gangs in our society stirring the pot. Its profitable to them.
Individuals commit crimes and its too many of all races doing it.
A lot of people are too scared or intimidated they may not call police when a crime is committed.
Its travesty when fake crimes make headlines.
Forget the murderers and their race. Forget the rapists and the group they came from.
Its only criminals filling our jails from every ethic background imagianable. Your “kind” is plentiful in jail too.
Statistically there is too much crime in America on all levels.
I think you need to check your sources, Ian. Sounds like white supremist propaganda.
“But gosh XXX, do you think when those drunk jocks hired her, they should have given her a warning statement that said “oh by the way, if you shake it good enough, we reserve the right to rape you”?
KFG, you misunderestimate how low my opinion is of jocks. If they’re guilty, I want to see them in jail for a long time. But I have some questions about this particular case. Like why didn’t the DNA testing incriminate anybody on the team? They obviously had some DNA evidence, or they wouldn’t have tested the team. The police report says that when the police found the victim, she was passed out drunk in a car. We also have a prosecutor who’s up for reelection. There’s also an undercurrent of townies vs Duke. And there’s a little matter of the victim’s past police record. She’s no angel. Now in my opinion, something just doesn’t pass the smell test here. I think we’d do well to wait and see how this shakes out before we make any judgment. Rape is a very serious charge.
I wonder how much they cen determine about the rapist from the DNA they collected from her? Hair color, race, etc?
They can determine precise racial makeup from intact DNA samples,
V.L.R.B!!
would be interesting …
BH,
Here is some info on how they use dna to determine race:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-08-16-dna_x.htm
V.L.R.B!!
“Now in my opinion, something just doesn’t pass the smell test here. I think we’d do well to wait and see how this shakes out before we make any judgment.”
Agreed XXX. Lots on both sounds just doesnt make sense.
For me the absolute low as a human being was Rush’s reference to the alleged victim as a “ho”. When asked to apologize, his response was even more despicable. “I’m sorry you heard me say that”
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