Reporters attacked, but it's not news

Two reporters from the Virginian-Pilot were assaulted after a concert by a mob of about 30.
The reporters, according to this guy, took a week off to recover from their injuries. The police were called and classified the incident as a simple assault.
Nothing was written about the incident in the paper, until one of the paper's columnists raised questions about the police report and paper's silence two weeks later.

I think it's a story - and the fact they were reporters has little to do with that. Wonder why the paper never wrote about it?


http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/uncategorized/reporters-beaten-by-mob-of-blacks-and-their-newspaper-stayed-silent.html

 

I commented over at Romanesko.

This one really bothers me.

If you get a report that people were beaten (and a car window was smashed in) from the people or their friends, it would be negligent not to follow up.

They basically penalized these people, because of where they worked.

It seems to me there is a much bigger story in what the police are and are not doing.

 

Memo from the editor to his staff and republished on the Pilot's website: http://hamptonroads.com/2012/05/memo-coverage-mob-assault-pilot-reporters

 

I'm gonna need more context before I decide how I feel about this.

 

Oh no!!!!!!

 

The fact that they were reporters doesn't make it newsworthy.
Not the brightest thing to get out of a car to tangle with a group. He should've used his head, moved to a safe area, and THEN DIALED 911.

 

Stupid honky!

 

You're right. He was stupid. Common sense should've kicked in but didn't.

 

A few thoughts...

* First, did anyone notice two run-on sentences in that memo?

* "The truth is, we have no idea what motivated the attack. Was it a gang or a gathering? Did it just happen or was something planned? Was it racially motivated or random? We just don't know." ...Could it not be both racially motivated AND random? And if the answer to the questions is, "Yes, there's a chance it may have been a racially motivated," doesn't that at least warrant more questions rather than throwing up your hands and saying, 'We just don't know and never will.'"

* This was a bizarre aside: "We have checked that neighborhood to see if there is an inordinate amount of crime there. There is not."

Anybody who has worked the crime beat at a metro paper knows that should make it a BIGGER story. That's why the poor sap who gets murdered in the ghetto gets a one-paragraph brief and the guy killed in the wealthy suburb is on the front page for weeks. (Not saying it's right, but that's an element of the news judgement that goes into it).

* Finally, I am highly dubious that if a mob of white people attacked two black reporters, it would be ignored. I hate that argument because it is usually made by the knuckle-dragging Drudge Report crowd, but there's some truth to it in this regard.

 

Folks on another message board I frequent are blaming Obama for the cover-up, and they're serious.

 

Shocking, shocking, etc etc.

 

Have you been around this site for more than 5 minutes and read what people are serious about?