Comment by throwaway040922 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaway040922 | Hacker News Reader

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throwaway040922

I think the fact that you have to go to alternative media like Reason to find articles about it speaks volume. Check out searches of mainstream news sites:

Google search for "Duncan Lemp" site:nytimes.com[1]: Two articles, neither of which are about his shooting, but which mention him in passing when talking about Boogaloo "extremists."

Google search for "Breonna Taylor" site:nytimes.com[2]: Dozens of articles from the Times.

Google search for "Duncan Lemp" site:cnn.com[3]: No articles on CNN.

Google search for "Breonna Taylor" site:cnn.com[4]: Dozens of articles from CNN.

It's simply impossible to not notice the glaring disparity with the media coverage (and again, these two shootings happened a day apart).

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anytimes.com+%22duncan...

[2] https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Acnn.com+%22breonna+ta...

[3] https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Acnn.com+%22duncan+lem...

[4] https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Acnn.com+%22breonna+ta...

>Check out searches of mainstream news sites...

Simply for what it is worth, if I Google "duncan lemp", I see articles about the shooting from The Washington Post, USA Today, the AP, ABC and The Guardian.

Thanks. I just checked The Washington Post and USA Today. The Washington Post has three articles on Lemp and one that mentions him in passing. They're all in the local news section (the shooting happened in a suburb of Washington D.C.). There's over a dozen articles on Brionna Taylor, even though that happened in another part of the country. Likewise, USA Today has one article on Lemp, and over a dozen on Taylor.

Also, again simply for what it is worth (not arguing anything, just pointing out what I am seeing - do with it what you will!), nearly every article returned when Googling his name seems to be about the shooting.

Simply comparing search results between publications really ignores the context of the stories and how they develop. People think that all newspapers should put out the exact same amount of content on each topic all of the time, but it's never worked that way.

Again, Breonna Taylor's story became an example of the case against the status quo of policing in America. Her story was elevated precisely because it was yet another example of injustice carried out by police that ultimately went unpunished. Community leaders and activists elevated this story on racial grounds because they believed it was important to do so.

Who in Duncan's community elevated his story? Who thought it was important to tell the story that a white guy died in a similar situation? It was covered as an event in the press when it happened, but it didn't get the kind of traction that Taylor's did because it ultimately didn't have the community support. Who would be the white equivalent of an Al Sharpton talking about how whites are mistreated by police? I really struggle to name someone that fits that description.

You switched from passive voice "Her story was elevated" to the active voice "Who in Duncan's community elevated his story?" This raises a question of fact - who got Breonna Taylor's story heard? How did they do it? Did someone attempt to share Duncan's story, and get rejected? Why?

It's easy to speculate. For example, Duncan didn't fit the racial narrative the media is comfortable with. This framing achieves several goals that the more accurate narrative, that police violence is evidence of severe problems with our justice system. The racial narrative pleases left-leaning viewers, it also plays better to right-leaning viewers because the problem of individual racism is still big, but much smaller and easier to accept. Or, they can love to hate the story.

A general failure of the American justice system is just not a narrative anyone wants to hear; it's too big. That narrative is one that challenges the mainstream view that the police are the good guys, and that American justice is fair. It's like "climate change", as a subject - much easier to pick it apart into anecdotes and pass judgement on individuals, which feels good and has no effect, or ignore it entirely, rather than confront the true scope of the issue.

Ultimately the problem is that "news" has shifted firmly from a "public service" of broadcasters, that loses money, to a for-profit endeavor chasing audience, aka "content". The former service tells us what we need to hear, but the latter only tells us what we want to hear. And precious few of us want to hear the truth, especially about ourselves.

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