"Black Male" In Google News
12/31/2008
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I got an email inviting me to Google the phrase "black male" in Google News, and see what the result was, and to what extent the resulting stories   were blamed on white people. The phrase black male without quotes produces 7,334 results, but produces some false positives. such as a white male with a black  jacket. The phrase "black male" using the quotes to get that exact phrase produces about 1,273 results, but in either case, the top story is one from NPR, headlined by Google News as Black Male Youth Being Murdered At An Alarming Rate, and which has the headline, when you open it Why Are So Many Young Black Men Being Murdered? (The difference may reflect changes by NPR since Google found it.)

It's a way of spinning the new homicide figures Steve Sailer discusses below. Black teenagers are comitting more murders, but in the media, especially NPR, they come out as victims—because they frequently kill each other.

And how are white people to blame? For cutting funding to crime prevention  programs, according to NPR.

"The study found the number of police officers in major cities has dropped more than 8 percent, and funding for crime prevention programs is down.

Fox said funding cuts disproportionately affect black communities, which suffer from broken families, bad schools and active gangs.

"I know people want their tax rebates and stimuli checks, but you know, a few extra dollars in your pocket is of little consolation if you're staring down the wrong end of a gun," Fox said.

Not all criminologists agree on the difference federal funding could make, but Fox said he hopes the Obama administration will increase funding. Vice President-elect Joe Biden was a driving force behind legislation that put 100,000 cops on the streets in the mid-1990s."

But the real scandal is not these stories, but the stories that aren't there. A search for robbery produces 42,000 plus stories. Many of those stories should include the words "black male" but they don't. A story in the Baltimore Sun, headlined Two men arrested in kidnapping of family, bank-robbery plot, doesn't mention race, nationality, citizenship or immigration status, although it seems to have been committed by two Ethiopians named Yohannes T. Surafel and Yosef Tadele. And can an American newspaper report that? No, they leave it up to a blog in Ethiopia! Ethioblog says

"Ed's Note: Based on the suspects' names, they appear to be from Ethiopia or Eritrea, but nazret can not confirm, more than likely the suspects are of Ethiopian origin."

and

[Nazret will tag articles to Ethiopia and Eritrea when we can not confirm positively if the subject of the news is of Ethiopian or Eritrean origin. None of the original news stories have identified these suspects by nationality. ]

[Ethiopia Eritrea - Second Suspect Arrested in Family Abduction, Bank Robbery Plot , Nazret.com, December 30, 2008]

Political correctness in reporting is unfair to the hometown newspapers of foreign criminals.   It's also unfair to the rest of us.

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