Lack of Diversity Faulted in Daniel Holtzclaw Story Disaster

[Starry Messenger]

http://www.theroot.com/blog/lack-of-diversity-faulted-in-daniel-holtzclaw-story-disaster/?utm_content=buffer86aa1&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

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Race was central to Holtzclaw’s story. “It seems nearly impossible to extricate the issues of race, gender, and abuse of power from a profile of Daniel Holtzclaw,” Hall’s report said. “A man of racial and institutional privilege (Holtzclaw’s father is white, and his mother is Japanese), he terrorized the black women he was sworn, as a police officer, to protect, choosing them as victims because he believed he could intimidate them into silence. Yet ‘Who Is Daniel Holtzclaw?’ manages to gloss over these issues almost completely.

“The story periodically acknowledges its subject’s guilt, but its overall structure, language choices, and underlying reporting more frequently have the effect of either casting doubt on the criminal charges of which Holtzclaw was convicted or portraying Holtzclaw himself as a victim.

“The story gives significant space to unsubstantiated speculation about what external factors might have ‘driven’ a police officer to rape numerous women, barely addresses the specifics of the horrible crimes of which he was convicted, and relies heavily on extensive interviews with people who dispute the validity of his conviction while almost entirely excluding the voices of his victims.

“It fits into a familiar model: an in-depth, humanizing character portrait of a suspect or criminal — usually one who’s white. If a publication takes on a story like this, its editors should be particularly cautious about making sure the piece doesn’t end up erasing the subject’s victims or crimes, as happened here.”

It continued, “According to Vox Media-supplied diversity data, as of March 31, 2016, 89 percent of SB Nation editorial staff self-identify as male, and 87 percent self-identify as white, the highest numbers in both categories across all Vox Media brands.

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Good story on how lack of diversity can skew news stories and editorial decisions to support institutional racism in society.

[MrScorpio]

1. So, he started raping black women BECAUSE he couldn't get into the NFL? Bullshit.

Even on it's face, that's a bullshit argument by SB Nation.

Funny thing though. At my brother's holiday party last year, I ran into one of Hoytzclaw's ex-team mates from the EMU football squad. I asked him if he had any clue that Holtzclaw was a rapist. The ex-team mate told me that he didn't know if Holtzclaw raped anyone while he was on the team, but when he found out he did rape women as a cop, he wasn't surprised, because he knew that Holtzclaw was an "asshole."

He did point out, however, that Holtzclaw was disappointed, as he wasn't picked up by the pros, but that was just arrogance on his part, because he didn't have pro skills anyway. It wasn't even close. I was thinking that he because a cop out of state because of sheer embarrassment. But, who knows.

I pointed out to the ex-team mate that Holtzclaw might have gotten away with raping more women than he did had he became a pro. Money, traveling from city to city, a certain amount of leverage over his victims as a pro athlete. Who knows how long he might have gotten away with it.

His ex-team mate concurred.

[Kind of Blue]

2. Yes, I agree that is is ultimately the lack of diversity but

I thought a powerful part of the conclusion in the Peer Review recommendation is

"Still, even at a homogeneously staffed publication, there’s no excuse for something like the Holtzclaw story to ever see the light of day...In the case of the Holtzclaw story, an unacceptably low number of the editors who read it prior to its publication appeared to understand the true severity of its problems. Editors who fail to understand at the outset why a story like this one ought to be considered sensitive or controversial are failing at a core job skill.

Good Lord, though one editor was "horrified" by the story before publication - they ran roughshod over her - and the man in charge was too scared to voice his misgivings, it's the support of institutional racism that still stuns me. It's like the compulsion is too sweet no matter the consequences.

https://docs.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=https://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6553831/Peer_Review_Final.0.pdf

[Starry Messenger]

3. I just read your link Kind of Blue. Wow!

Talk about a total system breakdown. I'm not shocked they didn't listen to the woman with concerns, who warned them--but their deer in the headlights reaction when the story blew up in their face is rather telling. They literally did not even give an ounce of credence to her warnings.

I hope she gets a promotion.

[Kind of Blue]

4. I hope that she gets a promotion, too! Lord knows she did her job.

It's amazing, she being a senior editor, that in the minds of those pushing to get the story published, she became a "low-level editor who is a climber" Wow!