Quote:
Originally Posted by troutman
Why would the news media cover up the story? On whose orders?
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On nobody's orders. The suppression is voluntary. This is the way the thinking goes:
- Right-wing hate groups are bad.
- Right-wing hate groups feed off stories of immigrants and foreigners doing bad things to natives.
- Publishing stories about immigrants and foreigners doing bad things to locals will fuel right-wing hate groups. Which is bad.
- So we shouldn't publish those sorts of stories.
I've noticed some prominent media outlets have not enabled comments for this story. Another soft suppression of expression. The sentiment is well-meaning, but terribly misguided and dangerous to public dialogue. The more the media tries to be gate-keepers for this sort of debate, the more they'll simply drive the dialogue underground, while diminishing their own credibility and relevance.
And honestly, does anyone think we wouldn't see far, far more media attention to a mass crime and harassment outbreak like this at a U.S. college town involving hundreds of drunk and rowdy frat boys? The columns about rape culture would be all over the front page of every news outlet and forum on the internet.