Of Laziness and Bias in the Media

Illinois Reason is a "progressive blog dedicated to ensuring the Illinois political discussion is reality-based, open and truthful." Well, okay, they seem to make a sincere effort over there, and the writing is excellent and always thought-provoking. Illinois Reason is worth bookmarking. On June 11, writer Rob Nesvacil, a man to whom I have been harshly critical (much of it tongue-in-cheek), wrote a great piece about the coverage - and non-coverage - of a heinous murder. The Nesvacil post was titled "Laziness v. Bias." A young white couple was brutally murdered by a group of black people. Murder, of course, knows no racial category, but many are asking why the murder of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom is not being classified as a hate crime. Whites kill whites, blacks kill blacks, blacks kill whites and whites kill blacks. Not to be politically incorrect, all groups have murderers within their ranks who kill both within and with their own genotype. I wrote a piece titled "Unequal Hatred for All" the day before, on June 10. Mr. Nesvacil referred to my piece: And even local blogger T. Mannis at Rogers Park Bench gets into the act, albeit with a much more balanced, almost inquisitive approach to noting the media reaction versus the reaction of conservatives (RPB also delves more into the libertarian and old-school conservative aspects of the hate crimes legislation at the guts of this story). Mr. Mannis correctly notes that some of the loudest voices shouting about this Knoxville case are hate groups of the Neo-Nazi and KKK ilk who have set up websites and staged rallies complaining, in part, about the lack of national news coverage. I left a comment Illinois Reason: "I enjoyed your post “Laziness v. Bias” (I like your entire site). I would point out, however, that too often it is tempting to link writers on the Left and the Right with their extremist cousins. For example, you referred to neo-Nazis and the KKK, then wrote, “(That’s some great company Michelle Malkin has there.)” That is not fair to Malkin, no more so than it would be to write that you keep the company of Maoists and Ecoterrorists. While you may disagree with Malkin, which is okay per se, it is a lazy bias - and a dishonest one - to imply that she is a Klan member or a neo-Nazi. I know that I am occasionally guilty of this type of thing myself. We are, Left and RIght, only human and the temptation to falsely link to extremism when in fact no meaningul link exists must be resisted. Again, thanks for a thought-provoking piece." RELATED: Not all hate crimes equal in the media (Chicago Tribune) Are All Crimes Created Equal? (Blogcritics.org)