In coverage of Roanoke killings, the right sees a racial media bias

[Karmadillo]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/08/28/in-coverage-of-roanoke-killings-the-right-sees-a-racial-media-bias/

In coverage of Roanoke killings, the right sees a racial media bias
By David Weigel
August 28 at 1:53 PM

The on-air shootings of two young Virginia journalists by Vester L. Flanagan II have captivated conservative media outlets -- but not for the same reasons that they've dominated cable news. On the right, the rest of the media is accused of soft-pedaling Flanagan's explicit intent to start a "race war" by killing two white people.

"The Wednesday morning murders of 24-year-old Roanoke TV reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward, 27, were a racist atrocity, a hate crime," wrote conservative icon and three-time presidential candidate Pat Buchanan in a Thursday column. "Were they not white, they would be alive today."

Buchanan and other conservative commentators have honed in on the rambling letter Flanagan sent to ABC News on Wednesday morning. In it, the disgruntled TV journalist said that he put down a deposit for his murder weapon two days after Dylann Roof allegedly opened fire on a prayer group at Charleston's historically black Emanuel AME church. "What sent me over the top was the church shooting," wrote Flanagan, "and my hollow point bullets have the victims’ initials on them."

That letter was quickly reported and quoted by the network that received it, but some on the right have accused the press of double standards. Roof's white supremacist manifesto defined the coverage of Charleston, and led to an ongoing political backlash against public displays of the Confederate flag. That, say conservatives, fed into the grievance-fueled worldview that seemed to define Flanagan, an incompetent reporter who accused networks and colleagues of racial bias when he was sidelined or let go. In this telling, the Roanoke killings were directly inspired by the media's obsession with Roof.

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[randys1]

1. The right is full of shit

about everything

[Igel]

2. When Roof did what he did,

the reaction among many was that it would be an outrage to try to understand him as a person. They were waiting for the cockroaches to come out of the woodwork to try to explain his behavior, to attribute anything to mental illness or any sense of grievance. Blacks had died. The killer was hatred incarnate and could have no mitigating attributes or even decent qualities. He was Satan. Defenders were demons.

It had to be because of outsider nefarious influences that led ineluctably to his absolute sense of racism, so that a young white man just wanted to kill blacks for racist purposes--if not explicitly (although tacitly--go figure) aiming at a symbol of AfAm power, an elected politician. Any failure to mention and highlight his manifesto was to be an accomplice. His motives were clear and must be taken at face value, at the very least. Better yet, take him as the tip of an iceberg.

Then this guy. You can listen to a 10 minute story that has a mention that he had some sort of manifesto, and the entire bit about race boils down to completely understandable, if unproven, racial grievances. He's mentally ill. Not only do we just not mention his manifesto, we have to actively deny that it has any relevance at all: I watched somebody argue that although he said he was gay and black, he wasn't really. To the extent of denying his claims that he was black! More than a couple argued he wasn't really gay, that was a slur against the gay community or perhaps he was confused. Mentally ill!

It's too early to come to a judgment because the investigation's still going on, unless that judgment is that he's the victim, and we, you and me and Obama and my friend Dave and my cousin Becky all personally failed him from thousands of miles away. One gets the feeling that this is going to be the required judgment after all the investigations are over.

The only alternative that some can defend is to blame guns. That serves to blame the right people and even if it doesn't defend this murderer it deflects attention. (This was bad when it deflected attention from Roof. But it's a good fallback for protecting this cold-blooded piece of shit.)