Today, what I consider two really big news stories broke.

[conuly]

One concerning an actor who apparently faked his own hate crime, and the other concerning a member of the Coast Guard who was apparently planning a massive terrorist attack, explicitly because he's a huge bigot against minorities.

I'm a little perplexed by the proportion of coverage these two stories are getting in my news sources. Not perplexed. More like disturbed.

Comments

[wpadmirer]

Yeah, a lot bigger deal over the black guy faking a hate crime than the white guy who wanted to go on a mass murder rampage to kill all Democrats.

[tielan]

I'm presuming that the 'proportion of coverage' is pretty much *crickets chirp*?

Which disturbs me, but doesn't perplex me.

[sathari]

Yeah. I am a LOT more concerned about someone in a branch of our armed/uniformed services plotting terrorism than I am about... really, quite a lot of other things in the news.

[conuly]

A little more than crickets, but not much. I suspect that if it wasn't for the other news, this would be a BIG story.

[conuly]

There are some fucked up priorities here.

[conuly]

FOR REAL.

[nodrog]

Don’t put it in writing.  Don’t use your work computer.  (Don’t use your home computer either.)  Don’t put anything on your hard drive.  (It’s called IronKey, folks.  http://www.ironkey.com/en-US/ )

“Crazy isn’t stupid,” but some people win a double trophy.

[heron61]

I'm seriously not trusting the Chicago cops wrt Smollett - they have a history of covering up hate crimes - also, while it does look suspicious, and someone may have set it up, there's no solid evidence that Smollett wasn't the victim of someone who paid guys to beat him up.

[highlyeccentric]

I am... not surprised. Although as far as social media goes the cause seems less disturbing to me (people feel betrayed by Smollett, and will talk about it, as opposed to 'neo nazis gonna neo nazi', which is... worth talking about, but far less surprising).

[hudebnik]

To be fair, the actor story has been developing for days or weeks, while the Coast Guard story (as far as I know) just broke yesterday. There may be more to come on the latter.

[havocthecat]

I'm in the Chicago suburbs, so the Jussie Smollett story is big news here, but the Coast Guard one is much less so. I had to find that one on NPR yesterday.

[eva_rosen]

If the would-be mass murderer was a bit more brown, it would be all over the news. Just as the white mass shooter is usually captured alive. No connecting issues between those two facts, of course.

[cactuswatcher]

I chalk it up to the usual. If it's Hollywood relatable more average people will watch than if it's some middle-aged nut job who got caught before he did anything, but buy guns and talk.

Then too, like the Atlanta child murders around 1980 and the Tawany Brawley hoax in the late 1980s, if the news can play something up as a horrible hate crime, then turn around and show it wasn't, so much the better for ratings. You spread fear on one side at first and then sooth the bigots who want to think hate crimes are mostly made up.

[lavendertook]

So not surprising which one is getting more coverage.

[siderea]

"'Crazy isn’t stupid,' but some people win a double trophy." is a deliciously felicitous turn of phrase, and I thank you for it, but are you really complaining that the asperant mass-murderer's most notable problem was slipshod infosec?

ETA: I mean, I get it. I provided mental health care to incarcerated felons and the most challenging part of my job was resisting the temptation to give them helpful pointers.

[conuly]

I bet you wouldn't try to help this guy.

[conuly]

That's a depressing point.

[conuly]

Still.

[conuly]

We'll see.

[conuly]

You'd think they'd both be big news everywhere.

[conuly]

You said it.

[conuly]

Nope.

[conuly]

Mmm.

How (Not) To Be An Evil Overlord

[nodrog]

Yes, that’s it:  The Facepalm.  I can hear Ren, the chihuahua from Ren and Stimpy, saying, “You ee-diot!”

What’s unsettling is to realize that we only heard of this guy because of what he was doing.  How many others, ordinary people in life and business and health care &c., need this?

[There was a crime of moral turpitude a year or so ago (is the Mann Act still in force?) where the participants sent messages which they then deleted after reading, not realizing that “deleted” entries still exist intact, they’ve merely been removed from view.  (Try it yourself - post a comment, Cntrl-C the link to it, delete the comment - even hold down Shift, which is supposed to totally delete it - and then in a new tab Cntrl-V that link.  Ding!  “deleted comment” - the link still works.  Odd, that…  And it always will.)

That wasn’t their only stupidity, but it’s an example of why they got caught.  They both totally flunked their IQ tests.]

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Writing to your news sources to say so....?

[conuly]

I might, there's an idea.