Yesterday, at the Duke lacrosse case panel held at Duke Law School, I asked a question of the panelists. After most had admitted regrets at the way they had written or played the story in the early going, I wondered if they would do it differently in the future. I asked the question pretty much like this: “Given the unseemly glee that the media framed the story in race, class and gender terms, especially emphasizing the upper-class, prep-school, white-privilege aspects, what are the chances that another story with these ingredients would be played the same way the next time?”
The only panelist who volunteered to answer the question was Newsweek‘s Susannah Meadows, who said she didn’t understand what I was getting at. The upper-class, prep-school, white-privilege aspects, she said, were facts that needed to be reported, and they would be reported similarly the next time.
Those panelists who seemed to think that these aspects of the story were handled responsibly, that they were simply facts reported in the course of covering a story, should read this post by K.C. Johnson. And then read the columns by News & Observer local columnists in the period after the story broke and tell me there was no headlong rush to demonize and convict the lacrosse players because they were upper-class, prep-school, privileged white guys.
It’s not just the words used in the news stories that frame a story. It’s those words pumped up by local columnists that can turn objective description into unfair characterizations.
