If you’ve been watching the news, you know that someone shot at an HISD school bus yesterday, injuring two students. Here’s the suspect’s description in the Chronicle‘s story:
A man wearing a red shirt and black pants fired at least two shots, striking the bus as it traveled on Ashville in south Houston about 5 p.m. Tuesday.
[snip]
Many students on the bus, however, gave police a description of the shooter, Abbott said.
Here’s the description in KTRK-13’s story:
Fortunately, no students suffered any serious injuries. They did tell police they saw a man running after the bus was hit, but it was only a vague description.
Some of the students onboard did see the alleged shooter running away from the scene, and they have provided police with a description.
KPRC-2 and KTRH-740 do not mention any sort of suspect description in their stories.
Now, here’s the suspect’s description that was provided to local media:
The students on the bus described the suspect as a black male, in his late teens or early 20s, with a “thick” build, wearing a red shirt with black pants.
Those were the details provided to police by the children on the bus.
So, there is someone on the loose who shot at a school bus filled with children, yet local media won’t give the public the information provided by eyewitnesses that could help apprehend him.
We’ve been down this road before with the Chronicle, when Reader Rep. James Campbell explained why the paper often decides to leave race out of descriptions:
[…]when it comes to crime reporting providing readers with a detailed description of a suspect – identifying marks, hair color, clothes, etc. – is far more useful toward nabbing the bad guy than race alone. That’s hardly “PC.” It’s practical.
In the same post, Campbell provides an excerpt from the Chronicle‘s stylebook:
Use a racial or ethnic identification only when it is clearly pertinent. If you would not normally identify a person as being white in a story, do not use racial identity. For example, if you would not write: “Dan Rather, the white anchor of the CBS Nightly News,” then do not write, “Connie Chung, noted Asian-American newscaster …”
Race should not be used in a police description that is too skimpy to identify a suspect, such as “a black man in his 20s.” But a complete description (several elements, such as height, weight and personal characteristics) should always include race.
Therefore we can assume that the Chronicle would like Houstonians to be on the lookout for any male wearing a red shirt and black pants — Anglo, Hispanic, Asian, Black, Eskimo, whatever. And, inexplicably, other local media outlets can’t be bothered to provide any description, period!
Pathetic.
Remember this the next time the media whines about The Public’s Right To Know. The media knows; the media has chosen to limit what it tells the public.
The best commentary on the Chronicle‘s policy (or whatever it is) is from Banjo Jones:
If a criminal is active in my neighborhood, I would want to know the suspect’s race, whether or not there is a more detailed description. At least it’s something. You’re being disingenuous in saying the newspaper’s policy is not rooted in political correctness. Instead of deciding what is or isn’t relevant, why not let the reading public decide? The Connie Chung-Dan Rather example isn’t relevant, unless Connie & Dan have resorted to a life of crime. A newspaper’s obligation is to print the truth, not worry about whether the truth incites some groups or feeds stereotypes. Race (and gender) are two of the most basic identifying characteristics. Your policy doesn’t make any sense.
It still doesn’t make sense.
