The idea of truth, justice and the America way is no longer relevant in Black Run America (BRA), as the myth of the pioneering reporter searching for the truth amidst an endless sea of lies is actually the reverse description of journalists now - they swim in a sea of truth yet report only what their lying eyes tell them is good for career advancement.
The Buffalo News decided to investigate the lives and backgrounds of those who died in the horrific shooting, actually working to locate a motivation to the killings and reported this:
Eight young people who grew up on Buffalo's streets were gunned down in a hail of bullets last weekend outside City Grill downtown, four of them fatally.For reporting the facts, the editor of the paper was forced to meet with 700 to 800 Black people that the story worked into a frenzy and inflamed with a righteous indignation that can only be satiated with a self-imposed censorship by the soon to be neutered press:
They left grieving families. Mournful friends.
And arrest and conviction records.
Their records indicating past or present associations with crime begets a certain lifestyle risk, law enforcement and criminology experts say.
"A felony prosecution or conviction increases your statistical likelihood of becoming a victim of a crime, and it's particularly true for men and particularly true for African-Americans," said Yvonne Downes, a criminal justice professor at Hilbert College. "It doesn't mean that the people deserved it or in any way had it coming."
Added a local law enforcement official who asked not to be named: "There were some very dangerous people there. There were numerous gang bangers and other unscrupulous people. But there were a lot of good people."
Family members, friends and community leaders say the victims were working to be better people and certainly didn't deserve the fate that befell them Aug. 14.
About 700 members of Buffalo's African-American community tonight shared their grievances with Buffalo News Editor Margaret Sullivan over an Aug. 22 article on the criminal backgrounds of victims of the shooting at the City Grill three weeks ago.
The forum, held in True Bethel Baptist Church, 907 E. Ferry St., was one that Sullivan had requested following negative reaction to the report.
Many in the crowd expressed outrage that the police records of the shooting victims were reported at all. They called the report a gross departure from how The News traditionally treats crime victims and that it was disrespectful to the victims, their families and the African-American community.
"I feel that we were victimized twice," said Cheryl Stevens, mother-in-law of Danyelle Mackin, one four victims who was killed in the shooting.
She was one of four family members of the victims invited to address Sullivan during the forum.
"What you did to us was you poured salt on the wounds that had not even healed. So, I'm asking -- and this is for all the families -- we want an apology," added Stevens.
Others who were specifically invited to speak included former Buffalo Common Council President George K. Arthur, who offered a historical perspective on the African-American community's grievances with The News' coverage of its community.
The Rev. Matthew Brown and Murray Holman of STOP the Violence Coalition also offered their perspectives, charging the newspaper did not often respect black people's feelings and that it showed a historic pattern of insensitivity in its coverage of the community.
Sullivan said she was pleased she was able able to listen to the views and explain the editorial decision behind the publication of the Aug. 22 story.
"I really am not here to try to do a point-counterpoint to everything that I've heard because I don't think that would be possible and my main purpose in being here is to listen," she said.
"I do want to say that the way The Buffalo News is being portrayed, at least, in terms of our intention and what we try to do every day is, essentially, unrecognizable to me. I know that the people I work with feel very deeply, that they care about this community. They care about you," Sullivan said.
Among the several-hundred people present at the forum, grumblings greeted Sullivan's opening remarks. And when members of the public got an opportunity to address her, they didn't mince words.
"It was an article concerning four victims that has brought us together," said the Rev. Darius G. Pridgen. "However, it is the decades-old perception of many in the community that must be addressed tonight.It was only a few weeks that gang members in the war zone known as Chicago held a press conference to lambaste the police for, well, doing their job:
At a news conference organized by self-identified gang members Thursday morning, several speakers complained that police and city officials do not respect them, and that the only way to curb violence is to provide jobs and improve their community.Reporting the race of the accused is a no-no in the current epoch we'll all endure together (Thugreport.com will one day be banned for being a modern-day Samizdat) and the editor from the Buffalo News dared flaunt this rule that governs journalism.
The men who spoke out Thursday morning blamed poverty, drugs and a lack of jobs for the problems in the streets. They also said that Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis' meeting with so-called gang leaders was a waste of time.
But when asked what could be done right now to stop the daily barrage of bullets on Chicago streets, they didn't have an answer.
Akeem Berry Sr., an admitted former gang member, said.
The Washington Post is afraid to talk about race when it might paint Black people in a negative light. The Los Angeles Times as well. Even police sketches are now reduced to a non-racial hue to comply with the rules that govern journalism and ensure that the Black community remains calm.
One book accurately nailed the rules that govern the world of modern journalism:
In his impressive new book, "Coloring the News," William McGowan has an unusual take on the continuing battle over bias in the news media: He think liberals are as damaged by it as everyone else. Bill Clinton, he thinks, was victimized in a sense by the early non-reporting of the gays-in-the-military issue. Because the newsroom strongly supports gay causes, journalists didn't bother to do much reporting on the depth of the opposition building against Clinton's pledge to allow openly gay members of the armed forces. The debate was skewed, and Clinton paid a high political price, because reporters thought the open inclusion of gays was too obvious a cause to cover in any detail.Those who dare point out the relationship of crime to Black people are denounced in the harshest of terms, branded below even the Untouchables in the Indian caste system. News editors that dare break the taboo of reporting race will be axed or worse, grilled by 700-800 Black people in the saintly confines of a Church.
The same yawn of obviousness surrounds newsroom treatment of affirmative action. One New York Times reporter told McGowan, "Nobody wants to do a story on affirmative action because they just don't see anything wrong with it." In the papers I read, coverage is slack, and articles favorable to race and gender preferences are much more common than not-so-favorable ones. The newsroom air is so thick with orthodoxy that it is very hard for readers and viewers to figure out what is really going on.
McGowan argues, in case-by-case detail, that diversity ideology has corrupted the newsroom. Hiring more women, gays and minorities was fair, but it pushed the newsroom further to the left, since those groups are more liberal than white males. These groups acquired the ability to monitor coverage of their own activities, often with the clear ability to airbrush out anything they considered negative or hurtful to the cause. Militant gays took over AIDS beats, often with little or no protest about a conflict of interest. Office commissars began to appear -- "senior vice president, diversity" or "diversity director" -- who sometimes sat in on daily news meetings and contributed to coverage decisions. (Just like a teacher or someone from the principal's office used to sit in and contribute to coverage of your high school paper.)
Journalists should report that the one-armed man was behind the crime henceforth and let the police discover the truth while the general public frets about a handicapped miscreant on the loose.No race; no description; just report that the one-armed man did it.
Because "truth, justice and the American way" is but a misappropriation of words in BRA. The inverse is reality, because "truth" is incompatible with modern America; "justice" but a word for profiling and police racism.
Truth has been on vacation for far too long; we are past due for justice. After all, it once was the American way.
