Black Leaders Want Local Media to Stop Reporting Crimes (Pittsburgh: lawyer, university)

[gg]

Originally Posted by Aqua Teen Carl

Putting in fluff pieces to uplift one part of the population while ignoring all others is the opposite of balance.

Who said anything about ignoring? I think there should be some positive stories mixed in. I never said anything about not reporting the news, but if you run 100 consecutive negative stories in Homewood and the Hill, maybe you could throw in a few stories about someone doing some good?

[Caladium]

So now that a little bit of time has passed, has there been a noticeable change in the media coverage?

[TechieTransplant]

Originally Posted by Caladium

So now that a little bit of time has passed, has there been a noticeable change in the media coverage?

I haven't seen a change.

[gg]

Originally Posted by Caladium

So now that a little bit of time has passed, has there been a noticeable change in the media coverage?

No. Murders, stabbings and robbing people reported daily from all the same old neighborhoods, everyday on every news channel several times a day.

[Pitts64]

It's the same devil behind it all, no matter who commits the crime......

[Steelers10]

It's all about perspective. Let's take a step awy from Pittsburgh and read this article from an exurban Virginia County:

Gloucester residents in dark as child abuse came to light

This couple committed horrific crimes and likely murdered one of their own infant children. They took better care of their dog. However, the writer of this NEWS article took special care to say:

Gloucester seems an unlikely spot for such horrors - a landscape of forests and farm fields sliced by Route 17, strung together by tiny towns with names like "Ordinary." Drivers recognize the area best as a place they're passing through, a blur of antique shops, big yards and convenience stores on the north side of the Coleman Bridge, the tall span that arches over the York River.

"Seems an unlikely spot for such horrors"? Why is that? Haven't some of the worst mass murderers in U.S. history committed their crimes in environments just like these? So why would child abuse be so far-fetched?

Over and over again it was reiterated in the article that the perpetrators didn't "look" like they were capable of such a crime. These aren't facts, these are opinions. I think what the Pittsburgh activists were alluding to is that as minorities, African-Americans are perceived as "looking" like they commit crimes and their neighborhoods "look" like places crime would be committed so therefore the media is more earnest in portraying these crimes. Although crimes are committed everywhere, when it occurs in the suburbs it is a "sensation" and portrayed as "how could this possibly happen here"?

I wholeheartedly agree with those posters saying that the people of Appalachia are negatively portrayed in the media. So where are their activists decrying these "hillbilly" characterizations? You can turn on the History Channel and watch documentaries called "Hillbilly" something or the other hosted by Billy Ray Cyrus and you see documentaries all the time talking about Kentucky and West Virginia in a context where everyone is related to (and acts like) the Hatfields and McCoys and is somehow participating in the illegal "moonshine" industry or hooked on meth. The A&E channel even has a show "Intervention In-Depth: Hillbilly Heroin" complete with discussion board. Why is this tolerated?

I would estimate because a significant Appalachian population migrated to places such as Pittsburgh and are "blending in" or "passing" as part of the white majority based on appearance with no further societal examination on their level of income, education, musical tastes, or propensity to commit crime. On the flip side, a minority who is wearing a suit is the most heavily scrutinized person in society (why is this colored person wearing a suit? Is he/she a business professional? A high-powered drug dealer? A rapper or entertainer? A defendant in court?).

[Caladium]

Just as a side note, I wouldn't call Gloucester a suburb or an exurb. It's way out in a rural area. The closest cities are Richmond and Williamsburg, both of which are separated from the peninsula the Goucester is on by a large river. The only bridge across the York River is 14 miles away. It's a different world from the metro areas in VA.

[Steelers10]

Originally Posted by Caladium

Just as a side note, I wouldn't call Gloucester a suburb or an exurb. It's way out in a rural area. The closest cities are Richmond and Williamsburg, both of which are separated from the peninsula the Goucester is on by a large river. The only bridge across the York River is 14 miles away. It's a different world from the metro areas in VA.

I'm not sure when is the last time you have been through that area but U.S. Route 17 is now a pretty popular alternate route to the Norfolk-Virginia Beach-Hampton-Newport News area. This region is called the Hampton Roads Metropolitan Area and Gloucester County is very much a suburb of it. The population has nearly doubled over the past 30 years or so and this is after the county had pretty much the same population for the previous 200 years.

The area along Rt. 17 is very much suburbia complete with strip malls, big box retailers, franchise restaurants, and new subdivisions behind them. Just across the bridge you described are a lot of extended stays and newer hotels related to the fairly busy regional airport for Newport News and Williamsburg nearby. You are correct, much of the area to the west of Route 17 in-between Gloucester and the more urbanized areas is not developed because it is the Colonial National Historical Park (where Cornwallis and the British surrendered to George Washington and the Continental Army).

Now granted, the county is almost 300 square miles so yes there are areas that are quite peripheral. However, most of the development is clustered along the Rt. 17 corridor and Gloucester Point is only about 20 miles (or a half an hour drive on a route that is almost all highway) from some of the worst "hoods" in the state of Virginia in Newport News and Hampton.

But once again, I don't know if you have been to that area but the bridge isn't much of a deterrent to suburban sprawl. There are wide rivers and long bridges (and tunnels) everywhere in the area. So the distance from even central Gloucester County (where the county seat is located) to the very urban downtown Newport News or Hampton is about the same distance from downtown Pittsburgh to Washington, PA or Aliquippa which are definitely part of the metro area. There are a fair amount of similarities between Pittsburgh and the Hampton Roads Area (although Baltimore is definitely a closer approximation) chief among them a lot of the sprawl has come without growth and the areas have seen better days in the 1970s. But once again, the basis of this discussion is that in the peripheral areas crime is portrayed as inconceivable as even being able to occur while in the black inner-city it is portrayed as somehow "normal". The mostly white suburbs and exurbs of Pittsburgh have some very severe urban problems. Deaths from drug overdoses in western PA by far outpace homicides. And as this article on drug deaths in suburban Pittsburgh indicates:

Drugs rank as Western Pennsylvania's top killer

four out of five victims of drug-relatated deaths are white. So if time afforded to newsworthiness is proportionate, by and large news stories covering tragic deaths in Western PA news (and Pittsburgh local stations) should revolve around white victims not black ones. While I don't think Pittsburgh is particularly progressive, race relations within the middle class seems pretty amicable. However, Pittsburgh is the largest city in Appalachia and the only one that has what could be construed as having a large black ghetto or large black population period. As I have said in other forums, I also think it strange that with all of the burnt-out mill towns and coal counties throughout Appalachia with all of their problems of drugs, crime, and poverty but few blacks, I also think it is strange that there is a disproportionate share of news coverage devoted to crime in which blacks are perpetrators and victims.

[Caladium]

Well, I don't know that I would go as far as to include Gloucester as an exurb, but it's cool if you do. After all, there are people up my way who think Winchester is a suburb of DC.

Anyway, for the sake of getting back on topic, let's move on. I'm not sure I completely understand your point (not your fault, I'm recovering from surgery today and am stuck at home on meds, so it's possible that I'm just not focusing enough). But, if I understand correctly, I gather that you think the Pittsburgh media is unfair and you want to see them cover more of the crime in surrounding small towns, and do less coverage of crime in inner city Pittsburgh. Interesting point that more people die from drug related deaths than from homicide,and it's true that meth labs are often out in rural areas.

I'm no expert on Pittsburgh crime but am curious what the rest of you guys think. Is there an equal amount of crime out in the surrounding small towns? Does it vary by the type of crimes? What about issues like domestic violence--worse in the inner city or worse out in the country or about the same?

[gg]

Originally Posted by Steelers10

It's all about perspective.

Not really. It is all about statistics. Just look at the inmate population in the Allegheny County Jail's percentage of black people and look at the percentage of black people in Allegheny County. It isn't at all about perspective, it is about real numbers. No one can do anything about statistics. They are what they are. The prisons over overrun with black people and the tax payers are of course paying the bills to keep them there. Wish they would at least make them clean up the litter in East Liberty, Homewood and the Hill, but whatever.