This summer I was looking for coverage about the tragic incident in which a woman was killed by her boyfriend in Texas. I typed into google "girl killed by her boyfriend in Texas" and the first article the popped up on GOOGLE was this one below:
http://www.newsnet14.com/2008/01/texas-girl-barbecued-by-black-boyfriend/
this article came from a white supremacist website. I understand that everyone is entitled to their opinions but is this really the first thing that should pop up? It's completely racist, the headline reads "Texas Girl Barbecued by Black Boyfriend"... if that isn't blatant racism I don't know what else is. I personally think a better piece of journalism should be the first story that comes up on the search engine.
2 comments:
I completely agree. It's pretty pathetic, disgusting, even, that these groups continue to prosper in the U.S., let alone on a search engine. Yet as much as I'd like a website like Google to filter out these racist radical group sites, I know that it would tap into "freedom of speech" rights. Ultimately, I think it becomes a question of: "When and where do we draw the line?" And in that case, I think many journalism and media outlets in general are trying to figure out the same thing.
After I read your post, it automatically made me think of a Current TV Vanguard Journalism documentary called "From Russia With Hate." It's about Russian hate groups who beat and kill innocent ethnic bystanders and post videos of them doing so. I know the correspondent who covered the story, and he got to meet with the leaders of these groups. The footage is really painful to watch, but it's extremely interesting to get inside the heads of these crazy characters. Here's the link, if you want to check it out:
http://current.com/items/84906361_from_russia_with_hate
I think you are definitely right.
The title of the story is completely uncalled for and there are definitely better ways to title a story like that with out being racist.
There was no reason to title story that in order to get the news to the public
I know everyone has the right to freedom of speech but a line should definitely be drawn when we are hurting a persons character through freedom of speech.
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