Temple Flash Mob Reportage

I felt a cold chill go through me when I realized what was happening here journalistically.

Friday, people from the age of eight up to high school age, numbering more than 100, gathered and split into smaller groups, then began attacking people in Philadelphia. I read half a dozen different stories regarding the events, and none mentioned ethnicity.

Well, being familiar with Philadelphia and having read some victim descriptions, I immediately assumed the attackers were black and the victims were white. But none of the stories mentioned ethnicity, which I found rather odd, to say the least.

Finally I read a story with quotes from a victim's father, who described his daughter's attackers as 30 to 40 young blacks. Curiously, the only mention in that story of ethnicity came from those quotes and not in the body of the story.

One would think ethnicity would be in the lead paragraph.

This story is featured more prominently in the international news than domestic. Strange. Consistent, across the board non-mention of ethnicity in half a dozen different stories regarding the events. Very strange.

It simply cannot be coincidence. It's terrible journalism to leave out such a key component of the story.

I'm stunned. How could half a dozen different news sources all manipulate the story to this degree? It turns out, moreover, that these gatherings and attacks have been happening for more than a week, but somehow Philadelphia has managed to keep a lid on it.

It's clearly black on white crime, so does that make it a hate crime? One would think it fits the description of such. If ethnicity were reversed, how big a story would this be, and would anyone be interested in keeping ethnicity out of the reportage?

I find this extremely disconcerting. The only conclusion that makes sense to me is that some outside entity pressured these different news sources into writing their stories a particular way. That truly frightens me, more than any renegade flash mob.

Eventually, the reality of the events must filter into the reportage, but I'm really shocked by the heavy handed initial manipulation.