Who would have cared if it had been a white guy fighting the LAPD on tape
rather than the (everyone remember the phrase?) "black motorist Rodney
King?" It would have been just another drunk fleeing and eluding.

Ya gotta sell that soap, and folks won't read your paper or watch your
broadcast unless you give 'em what they want.

wrote in message
...

"J. Clarke" wrote in message

Nice theory, but if you actually apply it to my example, a Golden
Retriever
mauling a child would certainly be a LOT more newsworthy a story.

Wrong. For three or four different reasons. And I say that as a former
newspaper reporter and editor for wire services and daily newspapers.
Among the problems are misidentification of the dog's breed, lack of
identification of the dog's breed (remember, in by far the largest
percentage of fatal dog attacks the dog's breed is unknown), and the
scare factor of the name 'pit bull'. Not to mention the relative
unimportance to the media of getting the breed right.

Let me give you an example from another area that may help clarify how
the process works. Three or four years ago a drunk in the upscale
community of Scottsdale, AZ, was driving home after an evening's
drinking when he hit and killed a boy of 10 or so. The drunk had the
misfortune to be driving a Rolls Royce. As a result the story got at
least ten times as much play as a typical drunken driving fatality of
a child and every stinking one of those stories mentioned the guy had
been driving a Rolls Royce.

Now as with most communities, the make of vehicle involved in a fatal
accident almost never makes the news at all, unless police are trying
to find the car. What made this car 'newsworthy' was the connotation
of wealth, luxury and privilege carried by "Rolls Royce." Just as
'pit bull' in a news story about a dog mauling is more 'newsworthy'
than, say, a golden retriever.