Mainstream publication says some are asking why no media outcry over murders in which victims were white and those charged are black
By Howard Witt
Chicago Tribune senior correspondent
Published June 10, 2007
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — What happened to Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, a young Knoxville couple out on an ordinary Saturday night date, was undeniably brutal. The two were carjacked, kidnapped, raped and finally murdered during an ordeal of unimaginable terror in January.
But whether the attack was a racial *hate crime worthy of national media attention is another question, one that has now ignited a fierce dispute over the definition of hate crimes and how the mainstream media choose to cover America’s most discomfiting interracial attacks.
That’s because the murders of Christian and Newsom didn’t fit the familiar contours of a traditional Old South attack, in which whites target blacks and reporters quickly assume the motivation must have been racial.
Instead, the races were reversed: Christian and Newsom were white; the three men and one woman charged with their murders are black. And the failure of the story to gain much media attention outside of the Knoxville area has galvanized conservative commentators across the country who insist the case offers clear evidence of liberal bias in the major media.
European Americans United does not adhere to the legal application of ‘hate crimes,’ though we do address the lopsided application of the charge against European Americans. — Editor