Posties On Chandra Levy Series
July 26, 2008 at 3:27 pm
On Sunday the Washington Post completes its 13-part series, “Who Killed Chandra Levy?”
What do Post reporters think about the massive undertaking?
Here’s a fascinating take from one of the Post’s own, quoted in the ombudsman’s Sunday column:
Several readers thought the murders of African Americans in the District had been slighted for one white woman who wasn’t even from Washington. And Robert E. Pierre, a Post Metro reporter, said that the emphasis on Levy “seems like either an awful big coincidence or just recognition that . . . a white life is worth more than a black one.”
Pierre said it was “unconscionable that we would devote 12 parts and a year to the investigation of this one death. About 200 people are killed in this city every year, most of them black and male. But the one that captures the ‘world,’ according to us, is the death of a 24-year-old white woman who had a relationship with a congressman.”
richarda said,
July 28, 2008 @ 7:53 am
Who’s kiddin’ who? The original story wasn’t so much about her as about ‘Congressional Sex Scandal’. If her affair had been with a civil servant at the Department of Agriculture, there would have been no massive investigation, much less any massive media hype.
In the same era in DC, the body of a young female Asian-American lawyer was found in a park along the Potomac. The story got more press than the usual drive-by shooting, but still only lasted about a week in the Metro section.
In both cases,the perpetrator turns out to be a common DC street savage, unknown to the victims.
DC is a dangerous place for young women; parts of it are a dangerous place for anyone not inside a Bradley Fighting Vehicle.
richarda said,
July 28, 2008 @ 10:26 am
Besides, isn’t ‘Rob Pierre’ the name of the dictator (”Chairman of the Committee of Public Safety” of the “People’s Republic of Haven”) in the ‘Honor Harrington’ series of SF novels by David Weber?