<story><title>We’re no longer naming suspects in minor crime stories</title><url>https://blog.ap.org/behind-the-news/why-were-no-longer-naming-suspects-in-minor-crime-stories</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>catillac</author><text>It sounds like the reason was to not perpetuate stereotypes, and in general caucasian people don’t seem to have that stereotype as far as I can tell. Whether they would have posted it or not is unclear, but if their only reason for not posting was as to not perpetuate stereotypes and the offender wasn’t living under that stereotype…</text></item><item><author>beervirus</author><text>If he’d been white, does anyone doubt that his description would have been published?</text></item><item><author>xsmasher</author><text>Withholding the description reasonable if it is so vague as to be useless. &amp;quot;Black male, 18-35&amp;quot; is not useful or actionable information.&lt;p&gt;If it&amp;#x27;s a more detailed description, and the shooter was still at large, then I agree with you.</text></item><item><author>xibalba</author><text>This is an interesting (and confounding) topic.&lt;p&gt;On a corollary note, Austin recently experienced a mass shooting in a popular Downton area. 14 people were shot. One died. Another is paralyzed. The local paper of record explicitly declined to publish the description of the suspects as released by the police so as to not &amp;quot;perpetuate stereotypes&amp;quot;. The question I have is, what is the obligation to report the facts of a story, regardless of consequence? My belief is that reporting should report all the facts and let the chips fall where they may. But I also understand that reasonable people can disagree. (In this case, it seemed unreasonable to me as one shooter was still at large.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gotoeleven</author><text>Do other regular black people appreciate when newspapers do this?  Anyone with half a brain knows what it means when the newspaper declines to describe a suspect.  It seems like it will both not have the intended effect of &amp;quot;not perpetuating stereotypes&amp;quot; and signal to everyone else that black people need special treatment.  It seems entirely worse in every respect.</text></comment>
<story><title>We’re no longer naming suspects in minor crime stories</title><url>https://blog.ap.org/behind-the-news/why-were-no-longer-naming-suspects-in-minor-crime-stories</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>catillac</author><text>It sounds like the reason was to not perpetuate stereotypes, and in general caucasian people don’t seem to have that stereotype as far as I can tell. Whether they would have posted it or not is unclear, but if their only reason for not posting was as to not perpetuate stereotypes and the offender wasn’t living under that stereotype…</text></item><item><author>beervirus</author><text>If he’d been white, does anyone doubt that his description would have been published?</text></item><item><author>xsmasher</author><text>Withholding the description reasonable if it is so vague as to be useless. &amp;quot;Black male, 18-35&amp;quot; is not useful or actionable information.&lt;p&gt;If it&amp;#x27;s a more detailed description, and the shooter was still at large, then I agree with you.</text></item><item><author>xibalba</author><text>This is an interesting (and confounding) topic.&lt;p&gt;On a corollary note, Austin recently experienced a mass shooting in a popular Downton area. 14 people were shot. One died. Another is paralyzed. The local paper of record explicitly declined to publish the description of the suspects as released by the police so as to not &amp;quot;perpetuate stereotypes&amp;quot;. The question I have is, what is the obligation to report the facts of a story, regardless of consequence? My belief is that reporting should report all the facts and let the chips fall where they may. But I also understand that reasonable people can disagree. (In this case, it seemed unreasonable to me as one shooter was still at large.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cronix</author><text>Chicken or egg?&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m inclined to think that the way the stereotypes were started and then perpetuated to begin with was they reported the persons color in news stories for decades for everyone who basically &lt;i&gt;wasn&amp;#x27;t&lt;/i&gt; white. Couldn&amp;#x27;t artificially focusing on any particular group or groups eventually lead to a stereotype if you aren&amp;#x27;t reporting on the others equally?</text></comment>