Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Selective Editing?
One of the news stories in the sports section over the past couple of days has been the report about Derek Jeter of the Yankees getting hate mail. The reports state that Jeter has gotten hate mail, including threats of physical violence and getting set on fire unless he stops dating white women. Having read this story in different papers on on different web sites I was struck by the paragraph that got left out in about half the stories.
The paragraph that gets left out is the one that also describes some more of what the letters say. The letters include that Jeter is a traitor to his race for what he is doing.
Think about that. A traitor to his race.
When you place this paragraph in the story it changes the context. When it says Jeter is getting threats for dating white women, the average person probably thinks that some redneck klanster is getting pissed off about this uppity black guy screwing white women. After all, according to the popular culture it is only white guys that can be racist. But with the additional paragraph about Jeter being a traitor to his race, it takes on a different perspective. This implies a black person is pissed at Jeter for dating outside the correct group. It changes the entire tenor of the story.
Maybe it's just me, but I think that particular fact is an important part of the story and shouldn't be edited out to save an inch of column. There were some other things in the story that could have been cut that weren't related to Jeter, such as a high school in Ohio getting simlar letters or some of the others that have received similar letters in the past or that the letters seem to be coming from the northwest PA and northeast OH areas.
I wonder why they left out the part that they did.
The paragraph that gets left out is the one that also describes some more of what the letters say. The letters include that Jeter is a traitor to his race for what he is doing.
Think about that. A traitor to his race.
When you place this paragraph in the story it changes the context. When it says Jeter is getting threats for dating white women, the average person probably thinks that some redneck klanster is getting pissed off about this uppity black guy screwing white women. After all, according to the popular culture it is only white guys that can be racist. But with the additional paragraph about Jeter being a traitor to his race, it takes on a different perspective. This implies a black person is pissed at Jeter for dating outside the correct group. It changes the entire tenor of the story.
Maybe it's just me, but I think that particular fact is an important part of the story and shouldn't be edited out to save an inch of column. There were some other things in the story that could have been cut that weren't related to Jeter, such as a high school in Ohio getting simlar letters or some of the others that have received similar letters in the past or that the letters seem to be coming from the northwest PA and northeast OH areas.
I wonder why they left out the part that they did.
