Talk:Murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom/Archive 1

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Living persons tag

I'm not trying to make a joke here, but why is the "Living Persons" tag on this page? 72.69.128.184 13:23, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Who is the sick bastard that submitted this for a biographies of living persons check? 24.57.207.199 16:02, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

That would be me. The suspects are living persons and are covered by our WP:BLP policy, regardless of whether they are the primary subject of the article. --Dhartung | Talk 22:37, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Are you sure? I mean, there are tons of articles that deal with living persons, but don't have the Bio tag on them... Pulling a quck one from the front page, Republic Protest... Where is the line drawn between what is a biography and what isn't? 72.69.115.191 03:40, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
The biographies of living persons policy applies to all pages on Wikipedia, including Talk pages. --Dhartung | Talk 16:51, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I understand that... but it would just be silly to have a BLP tag on every single article - thus the decision needs to be made on which articles require the tag and which ones don't. It is my humble opinion that it's kinda... morbid(?) to have the BLP tag on a page about the murders of two individuals. The article isn't a Biography of the suspects - it's about the murder - and a 'murder' isn't a living person. 72.69.111.117 00:02, 18 April 2007 (UTC)


If we have a consensus that we can resolve this without asking an administrator to come by, I'll consent to removal of the tag. I would rather have an outside opinion than fight an edit war. --Dhartung | Talk 00:12, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Is there a 'section' version of the BLP tag? The section titled "The suspects" is most assuredly about living people who deserve the same protections of any other biographical statement, lest we defame them wittingly or unwittingly. Since they have no other biographical article on Wikipedia at this time, that scrutiny should be focused here. -- nae'blis 02:16, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
I strongly object to the inclusion of a Biography of Living Persons tag. In case you couldn't read, the subject of this article is the Murder of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, not lives of the suspects. If anyone feels it is so important for the suspects to have BLP's, then get on the ole' google, do some research, and start a new Wikipedia page dedicated to the lives of each of the suspects. Their biographies do not belong on this page. --Douglasfgrego 15:05, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Douglasfgrego, I understand you're upset. There is no way that this article can exist, however, without also including material on the suspects, I'm sure you agree. The Wikipedia policy requires that any information on living persons, whether they have an article or they are part of somebody else's article, conform to our rules for verifiability and reliable sources. None of the suspects has pled guilty, none has been convicted, and legally they are all considered innocent until that happens. Are we all clear that rumors about the crime are not to be reported here unless discussed in the media and attributed to sources? Unless we are, then I am still going to request an administrator keep an eye on the article. The tag was only there as a request for an administrator so that this article would have more oversight. Now that the rumors have been removed, there may be no need for it to be there, but if policy violations reappear then this is going to be a problem.--Dhartung | Talk 16:21, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

YouTube video

Why does this article link to a YouTube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J891pL6XamU) with the summary "We pledge to celebrate and supplant Channon Christian-Christopher Newsom Day instead of MLK Day on Monday, January 21st, 2008, and every year thereafter. Channon Christian-Christopher Newsom Day celebrates White bravery, and White rights to be unmolested upon Our Own Homelands."? 64.81.78.179 21:46, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

YouTube is not a reliable source and almost never has justification for being in an article that is not about a YouTube video or user. --Dhartung | Talk 22:37, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Removed. Any disparaging material that is unsourced should be removed immediately, then asked about for possible re-inclusion. YouTube almost never qualifies though as a reliable source. -- nae'blis 18:46, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Reliable sources

Excuse me Nae'blis and Dhartung, I started this article. Who the hell do you guys think you are to demand contributors ask your permission to modify? You are not the Wikipedia police, nor are you the definitive authority on this subject. The whole point of Wikipedia is to allow an organic content evolution, not that a couple busybodies censor information with the intent of altering the message to suit their political interests. And don't try and hide behind the guise of "Unreliable source", "Incorrect citation", "disparaging material", or whatever the hell Wikipedia rule you like to hide behind. What gives you the authority to interpret Wikipedia rules? The edits you've made render your intentions transparent. Don't you guys have a copy of "The Nation" to read? --Douglasfgrego 15:24, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

No one owns their edits on Wikipedia. Your contributions are credited to you, but with the exception of talk pages and your userspace, you have no right to expect that they will remain unchanged, or that people will ask your permission before changing them. Likewise, no one is trying to tell you that you cannot change our edits, but merely that all edits should comply with certain policies and guidelines. One of those is that we do not include unsourced information, especially when it regards real people. The chance for impact on real lives and real feelings is unarguable; people are sued every day for libel and slander. Our defense as an encyclopedia is that we do not foster rumors or engage in original speculation, but that we report and collate what other people in reliable sources have already said. Does that make more sense? -- nae'blis 16:29, 18 April 2007 (UTC)


Mister Blis, I don't expect my postings to remain unchanged, nor do I expect anyone to ask permission to edit content. In fact, if you go back and read what I posted, you'll see that I wrote: "The whole point of Wikipedia is to allow an organic content evolution". Then go back and read what you wrote: "material that is unsourced should be removed immediately, then asked about for possible re-inclusion."

You see, you can claim any kind of atrocity as long as you are Jewish, but as soon as you are German, Boer or White American - everything gets questioned again and again. In the case Jewish claims this is called "Holocaust Denial" (so muc for hypocrisy, Mr Blis). Anyway I think it's a good article and it has been posted elsewhere, too: http://www.boerevryheid.co.za/forums/showthread.php?p=113092#post113092

For the record: The immediately preceeding paragrah was NOT part of my original post, and the source is a unknown. I completely disassociate myself from this paragraph.--Douglasfgrego 15:17, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

You are contradicting yourself. But your hypocrisy is beside the point. The stated purpose of Wikipedia is be the repository of all human knowledge. This is supposed to be an educational resource, and information relevent to the subject should be preserved. The first question anyone should ask themselves before making an edit is "Will this edit increase, or decrease the usefulness of this post". If the answer is decrease, the edit should not be performed. Your editing, by removing information and links has only decreased the usefulness of this post.

This is not an encyclopedia, it is a website, and no one is going to get sued for Slander or Libel, especially not by a gang of ex-felons looking at the electric chair. Even IF someone got sued, there is a comprehensive record of all edits, so whomever it was that posted libelous information is the one that would get sued. You are taking this all waay to seriously; coming up with increasingly preposterous justifications for your obsessive revision of this post, which clearly reflects your politically correct agenda. You're concerned the content could hurt someones feelings? Unbelieveable. Two people are dead.

it seems I am mistaken. You a re the Wikipedia police. As it turns out, you are a Wikipedia administrator. Besides having waaaaay too much time on your hands to "correct" other peoples work, what qualifications do you have for this title? Any degrees or experience in journalism, academia or law? I doubt it, so you need to shut up if you don't know what you're talking about. Let me remind you of something from your own profile:

* Note: I've tried to stop using the term 'administrator' as it implies authority or power in what is essentially a flat leadership model

Your words. Instead for altering other peoples work to align with your beliefs, why don't you spend you energy creating something original? --Douglasfgrego 21:24, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm confused as to your goal in quoting my profile page back to me; so far I have acted only as an editor on this page, not as an 'administrator' or policeman. I am happy to discuss the page's content with you, provided we are working from the same basic foundation of policy and guideline. That is all of the "authority" I am claiming; that certain content guidelines are in place, especially in regards to real people (both the living and the dead, in this case), and extra care should be taken in all cases. Where does the statement "she had been repeatedly gang raped, forced to watch the torture of her boyfriend..." come from in reliable sources? Would you want that statement made, if untrue, about someone you know who was killed? A news media story would be sufficient here. I do not know the history of why the extensive section of "volunteertv.com" links were removed, perhaps you can enlighten me there? It seems to be a legitimate news station so it may be that some of those links are the sources we are looking for (but they should be cited specifically, not just listed, please). I await your reply. -- nae'blis 21:24, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
In addition, it appears to me that you have mistaken the "project to create an encyclopedia" with the tagline "the sum of all human knowledge". Despite that unfortunate choice of wording in advertising copy for Wikipedia, we are not wholly indiscriminate in what we accept. I refer you to the discussion on tertiary sources below for more information on that, though. -- nae'blis 21:24, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Nae'blis, to eliminate any confusion, I deleted the long list of volunteertv.com links, which I suspect were added in reaction to my placing the {{Unreferenced}} template on the page, because they were an indiscriminate directory of news stories and thus superfluous per external linking policy. "References" implies that there is a source that supports a particular assertion, and there wasn't anything indicating that was the case. --Dhartung | Talk 01:18, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I gathered that from the page history, but those links have value as sources, provided they are correctly formatted. For ease of editing, I am copying them here. Please strike/delete entries once they have been used in the article in the proper format, or determined somehow to be unreliable. Douglas' work to find news articles should not be discounted just because he does not know the 'proper' way to format references yet. -- nae'blis 14:37, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Alrighty Mr. Blis, the point of quoting your profile back to you was to highlight how your actions are inconsistent with your words. You may not be exercising formal Wikipedia Administrator authority, however by obsessively monitoring and revising this post to conform to your arbitrary interpretation of policy, you are acting in defacto administrator capacity. I challenge your understanding and interpretation of policy and guidelines, and if I knew how, I would appeal to your Wiki-boss.

Any contribution to this post is deleted, or revised by either you or your friend within a 6 hour period. Any modification considered unacceptable by you, or Dan is quickly changed back to a version that the two of you find suitable to your sensibilities. Then you both hide behind policy to try to excuse your actions. By doing so, you two have assumed authority over this post. Nobody can put anything up here that you don't like. You say "Anyone can make changes, or revise our edits." Yes, they can, but then one of you two comes along right after, and changes it back to your version.

That is my primary objection. The two of you are acting as censors, and the nature of your revisions has been to soften up the content to make it more palatable to those of a left leaning political persuasion. You are taking control of the dissemination of information, and altering it to suit your purposes, and interests. Your actions are in direct conflict with the egalitarian purpose of this very website.

Wikipedia is becoming an increasingly important resource, and it's usefulness is directly correlated to the quality, and comprehensiveness of it's content. Instead of finding reasons to remove information, we need to find reasons to include information. Google Christopher Newsom and Channon Christian, and this post pops up as number 2. Most people are going to come here first. They should have access to as much revelent information, in one place as possible. The facts are deliberatly misrepresented in the introduction by the usage of the word "Allegedly". This cannot be changed (as it is re-edited by Dan wihin 6 hours), and Dan does this on purpose because he knows that the word "Allegedly", in the context it's being used, lessens the impact of this crime. Even though he's using the word incorrectly, and without justification.

Likewise, you Mr. Blis removed the search warrant link under the pretext of an authenticity challenge. Ostensibly, the real reason, and result was to impede the credibility, accuracy and usefulness of this post.

Finally, your question "Would you want that statement made, if untrue, about someone you know who was killed?" is totally irrelevent because the preceeding statement is true, and supported by the facts. With or without a personal connection to Channon, this event is an outrage, and the public should be made aware every unpleasant detail.

I wish I never started this post. Had I only known what an aggravation it would become.

--Douglasfgrego 15:28, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Douglas, I assure you that I have nothing against you personally. I am exercising my responsibility as an editor to ensure that all articles on Wikipedia conform to our policies and guidelines. I highly recommend that you spend a little time reading what they are and understanding how they underpin the Wikipedia project. As for your own comments, I cannot emphasize strongly enough that you must assume good faith of other editors including myself and Nae'blis, which you seem reluctant to do. (Words like "ostensibly" have no real meaning when you do not have evidence.) In fact, you are coming close to personally attacking us. I know it must be frustrating to have things you add changed or removed, but on every Wikipedia edit page it warns you that if you don't want your work to be "mercilessly edited", you should not be contributing. If you cannot discuss changes to the article civilly, as well, I guarantee that you will face sanctions as an editor. Please try harder to listen to what other editors say and consider their arguments in the best light. Thanks! --Dhartung | Talk 18:26, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Warrant sheet

I have removed the following pending a better source:

A review of the City of Knoxville search warrants on the Chipman Avenue property where the body of Channon Christian was found is telling. http://gray.ftp.clickability.com/wvltwebftp/pdf/davidson-search.PDF

I'm having a hard time seeing what the source of this PDF is. The website is not an official governmental source, and while this is probably authentic, we should be careful not to include bogus material, especially in light of the racially charged nature of this crime. -- nae'blis 18:50, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Not only are the search warrants in this link relevent to the article topic, this is the most important, useful and authentic piece of information in there. Where the hell do you get the nerve to delete relevent information just because you couldn't identify the source? Did you ask the person who added this link? The search warrant link should be assumed to be authentic until such time as it is proved to be false. No one should remove information as significant as this until they can proove it is incorrect. --Douglasfgrego 15:02, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely not. Can you prove that the website gray.ftp.clickability.com is directly connected to the City of Knoxville and/or the Judge/Prosecutor who issued it? If not, there is no proof that it is an unaltered file reporting the true state of the warrant. If it is the authoritative source, great, but until we have that source there's no presupposition that "probably true" information gets put into the encyclopedia. -- nae'blis 16:31, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Assuming it's a true copy of a warrant, it still fails as a source. Wikipedia as an encyclopedia is a tertiary source, meaning we record what is reported in secondary sources. A primary source such as a warrant is nothing more than a record of the warrant. A warrant by itself is proof of nothing. Leading wording such as that accompanying the warrant, "a look at the warrant is telling", is WP:POV-pushing. Please avoid using Wikipedia to prove the criminal case. --Dhartung | Talk 21:03, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Clickability [1] is a site that provides content services for media outlets, including WVLT (a TV station in Knoxville) -- the URL just indicates where it's being hosted. This page [2] on their regular site (volunteertv.com) links to the warrant. Pinball22 20:21, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
A link to a document from a reliable websource is used on wikipedia all the time. I find it hard to believe that someone would say they are not a useful source. They are published, factual and verifiable sources. Saying they have to be filtered though an outlet is an abuse of the ban on original research and is also WP:POV-pushing. This is not a web source that is published by a blogger, it is a professional service. Dominick (TALK) 19:39, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Definition of the word Allege

al·lege(-lj)

tr.v. al·leged, al·leg·ing, al·leg·es

1. To assert to be true; affirm: alleging his innocence of the charge.

2. To assert without or before proof: The indictment alleges that the commissioner took bribes. 3. To state (a plea or excuse, for example) in support or denial of a claim or accusation: The defendant alleges temporary insanity.

4. Archaic To bring forward as an authority.

The difference between an allegation and a fact, is that an allegation might not be true. The word Allege is inappropriate to be used in the context of describing this crime, as this couple was raped, tortured and murdered. Fact.

There does not need to be a judicial ruling to make this determination, the defendants couldn't have been charged with these crimes if the Knoxville Medical examiner, Police, and District Attorney hadn't already determined that rape, torture and murder had occured.

When the crime is described as "a young couple from Knoxville, Tennesee who were allegedly murdered.", there is the implication that this couple might not have been murdered. All media outlets who have reported on this crime do not use the qualifier "Allegedly" when describing it as a murder. The media is subject to much higher reporting and accountability standards then Wikipedia. They also have lawyers on staff that advise what can, and cannot, be said and in what context.

According to Dan Hartung's "standards", and despite the pile of bullet riddled corpses at Virgina Tech, 31 people were "allegedly" murdered, because there hasn't been a court ruling.

--Douglasfgrego 13:53, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Considering five suspects have been arraigned on charges related to the murder (http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=44337&provider=gnews among other sources), I have no problem with removing alleged from the description of the murder act. Where we need to be careful is not sentencing the defendants prematurely, so 'alleged murderers' would still be correct/necessary. Thanks for keeping up with this, Douglas. -- nae'blis 14:22, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I can accept this argument. --Dhartung | Talk 18:29, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I realize this particular discussion is several weeks old, but I really have to comment on this "controversy" on the use of the word "allegedly".
Someone used the word "allegedly" to describe the people murdered?? You're kidding, right?
You mean Channon Christian cut off her own breast, shot herself, set herself on fire, then stuffed herself in a trash can? Or maybe someone else did all those things to her, and it wasn't murder, but an accident?
Looking at the details reported in this case, the use of the word "allegedly" to describe the murders is ABSURD. That this was even an issue is equally bizarre.
The only time one would use the word "allegedly" to describe murder would be if the circumstances of the death were somehow in doubt (i.e., someone falls from a building. It's unclear if the person jumped or was pushed, and the person was known to be suicidal, but also had many enemies.) But 99 percent of the time, such a death wouldn't be called a "murder" unless there was some compelling evidence or source to demonstrate that murder was in fact the case.
I'd love to know who doubted that the deaths of Christian and Newsom were ever NOT murder, after the first two days of the news stories on their deaths. Simplemines 17:54, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
Nobody's saying that they weren't murdered. The proper usage is: Christian and Newsom were murdered. Christian and Newsom were allegedly murdered by Thomas, Davidson, Cobbins and Coleman. It's not disputed that an event occurred; it's disputed who did it. Even in cases where it seems really darned obvious, we reserve the finding of guilt to the court system, and until they make their determination, the guilt of the suspects is still only alleged. grendel|khan 18:20, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
I believe this discussion began with "Christian and Newsom were allegedly murdered," PERIOD. If one uses the passive voice without a "by" (indicating actors who committed the murder), the sense of the sentence is that the murders are in question. "Alleged" goes with the suspects until or if they are convicted.
Just an example of why passive voice can be a poor sentence construction, particularly in a case like this.Simplemines 21:42, 13 May 2007 (UTC)


Check any Newspaper style guide. This is just the first that came up on Google:

alleged Often misused. Don't use this adjective to describe something that is true or already verified. For example, if the police have verified that a burglary happened, it's simply a burglary; it's not an alleged burglary, even if they don't have a suspect in the crime. And when they arrest someone for the crime, he is a suspect; he's not an alleged suspect. Drop alleged. The person accused of the burglary, however, is an alleged burglar. And if he's convicted of the crime, he's no longer the alleged burglar; he is the burglar in that crime.

http://home.comcast.net/~garbl/stylemanual/a.htm

MSM usually plays it safe, although their are tabloid and dumb exceptions, to be fair in which crimes may or may not have occured such as rape, wife beating, child abuse. But most of the time MSM avoids the awkward work "alleged" by rewriting sentence with a qualifier such as:

they were raped, according to court documents. they were raped accoring to police.

and so on which is why all the "writers" here on Wikipedia missed it. Undog (about time to disappear as some of you are as fun to deal with as the New Black Panthers)

Any MSM, central-left bloggers reading, this is your perfect opportunity to bash white extemists, Michelle Malkin, right wing bloggers making same mistake left did in Duke, and the accuracy of Wikipedia

images

KPD is clearly Knoxville Police Department, and I've finally deciphered that MCSO is Marion County Sheriff's Office. Any idea what the copyright restrictions are on these apparent mugshots? Is there a better source for the images that we can utilize? Just taking the news media's images is copyright infringement, but this article would benefit from being able to have some pictures, even if it's just a recreation of the map of where the bodies were found. -- nae'blis 16:00, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

No mainstream media coverage

OK, so one editor deletes the link that sources the Controversy section, showing that indeed SOME PEOPLE have questions about media entities killing this story. Another removes it for not being sourced. A simple google search can easily find hundreds of blogs, forum postings, etc showing SOME PEOPLE questioning why the corporate media, run by a small handful of corporations with political and social agendas, all decided to kill this story.

Answer this: if the mainstream media is choosing to not report on this, how is it possible to come up with sources from the mainstream media, esp. sources pointing to bias in said media? Search news.google.com for "Channon Christian", there's no articles. This in itself is proof of this alleged bias. Put your political correctness on the shelf for a second, it's disgraceful to the victims everyone who has had their lives destroyed by this gruesome crime that it's being swept under the rug in the name of being PC. 216.223.173.45 23:16, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think anyone's even said you had to come up with "mainstream media" sources, only that they had to be reliable sources in some way. An opinion piece or a blog entry don't count; a news article or a TV clip, even from an independent local paper, would count. The only source I saw removed from the article was the opinion piece at diamondbackonline.com; of the six sources currently linked, the first four are opinion pieces and therefore inadmissable as 'evidence' of a media conspiracy, and the last two are reprints of one of those pieces. you may be able to word the section in such a way as to say that there is "talk in some right-wing opinion papers about a conspiracy/blackout", but that's skirting perilously close to original research. We're not here to break the news, only to report the verifiable details of what has already been reported elsewhere. -- nae'blis 18:52, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

supposed 'media blackout'

I'm not seeing much evidence of a "media blackout" on this matter. Fact is, carjackings and murders happen every day that don't make national headlines (I know, it's part of my job). And the fact that much of this story broke right before the Virginia Tech shootings seems to explain the "blackout" from there on out. But it doesn't really matter what I think or any other editor thinks, but what the sources say. And if non-blog, non-hatesite sources don't say there's a blackout worthy of commentary, then there's nothing to put in the article that doesn't violate our policies. Sorry. -- nae'blis 03:59, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

You are a funny guy. After some decent people were ringing the bell, it got attention. Before that there was a blackout. But let me ask you one thing, now imagine 5 White guys in KKK-robes would have raped and murdered a Black couple. Would you say this would have been treated the same way then this case?!
The interesting thing is, saying there's a media blackout -- no coverage -- is a strong argument that the subject is in fact not notable. But I'm pretty sure that's not the point intended. --Dhartung | Talk 04:45, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
An actual media blackout would be pretty damn noteworthy, but unlike some, I don't buy that there's a global media conspiracy. Some media outlets will always be independent, but blogs and opinion pieces don't count for our sources. -- nae'blis 18:47, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Here is another example of an actual media blackout. Farm murders of White farmers by Black terrorists in South Africa. Not a 100% Blackout, but the few times they report on this, they imply that those murders are due to "White racism".
Then change it to mainstream media blackout. Stop the political correct defensive posture and take some responsibility for your people's actions, regardless of your personal misgivings. No one will call you an Uncle Tom.
Crimelibrary.com talks about the media ignoring the murder. They are a "non-hate" site and are not a blog. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.45.160.83 (talk • contribs)
If you cannot see there is a media blackout then you are an idiot. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.180.36.253 (talk • contribs)
I find Nae'blis' remarks on these murders to be fascinating, especially his contention that there has been virtually no MSM coverage because "much of this story broke right before the Virginia Tech shootings."
That is NOT true. The Knoxville couple was murdered on or about January 7 (the actual date is still in question, but you'd know that if you read the grand jury presentment.) By January 12, three of the five suspects were in custody, and details about the carjacking and rape(s) (since both were raped repeatedly and in various orifices) were already in local newspapers.
Four of the suspects were indicted before the end of January, and by February 2, the entire 46-count indictment was unsealed and made public.
The Virginia Tech massacre occurred on April 16, more than TWO MONTHS after horrific details of the crime emerged, and four of the five defendants were in custody, and more than FOUR MONTHS after the actual murders themselves.
The only thing Nae'blis said that's correct is that the silence of MSM on this story isn't a conspiracy. It's not a conspiracy; it's a habit.
Who said there is a conspiracy? You are not trying to twist someones words, are you?!
Let's imagine for a moment that the races of the victims and killers were reversed. Is there anyone alive who doubts that the torture, mutilation and murder of a young black couple by four white men and a white women wouldn't not be front page, 24/7 cable news fodder for weeks?
You doubt it? Anyone remember the Duke LaCrosse team? Anyone remember how their alleged rape of a black stripper was constant being churned for weeks in the news cycle, unlike the relevation that the stripper had lied and the DNA evidence proved there had been no rape by the Duke students.
But to give MSM credit, they did at least acknowledge the facts of the DNA tests with the Duke students, even if they only did for five minutes, whereas there has been virtually NO coverage of the Christian-Newsom murders beyond the state in which it happened.
Having said that, there's no mass conspiracy at a "cover up." It's just that the vast majority of editors and reporters are liberal to left, and they find THIS "sort of thing," i.e., black on white crime, particularly prolonged murder and torture, so full of horrible and grisly details, to be extremely unpalatable when the victims are white and the killers are black. It offends every last one of their politically correct sensibilities.
So if the story was ever reported outside the region where it happened, it was a definite three graphs, "buried in the back" kind of thing (since I'm not at work, I can't Nexis the New York Times or Washington Post to see if they did pick up any little bit of the story.) I can say if one of the major outlets had published or broadcast it, and made it more than a one-story mention, the others might have very reluctantly gone with it (probably with lots of editorials and op-eds about how it was evil capitalism of an inherently racist society that caused this tragedy.)
These guys don't sit down and THINK about this. There are no secret journalistic enclaves where they decide on what stories to surpress. It's just a knee jerk, reflexive liberalism born of decades of being able to think only ONE way, with no room for anything else.
Believe me, I know. I've scanned AP wire copy every day for a decade, and I definitely would've remembered murders like THIS if anyone had bothered to push the story even the slightest bit. Simplemines 04:33, 11 May 2007 (UTC)Simplemines
You know, I made that comment about the proximity to Virginia Tech shootings very early in the discussion here, and the fact is that for some reason this article didn't get started until mid-April, so I was confused initially on the timeline. I still think that there's no such bias in the media, but the point is it doesn't matter what you or I think, but only what the reliable sources have to say on the matter. I think the controversy section is much better now than it was initially, much less knee-jerk. I don't have Lexis-Nexis access either, but that would be original research on our part anyway, if we were to try to include it in the article. -- nae'blis 18:02, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes, Nae'blis, I can see you were confused. Your confusion could very easily have resolved itself if you had read even one article on the slayings before you posted. You then would've realized that the murders happened in the beginning of January and not in April.
I don't think reading news stories BEFORE you comment is on a par with Wikipedia's ban on "original research."
Actually, it does matter what I think. Not in this case, but in many other articles here, I AM one of your original sources. Simplemines 18:07, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
I honestly have no idea what you mean by that last statement. Can you clarify? -- nae'blis 18:10, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
To clarify: You should read at least a few news articles before you comment on them. And my opinion matters because I work for the evil MSM. Simplemines 18:16, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
Appeal to authority - I don't care what you do in your day-to-day job, you can't come here and declare something to be something, and have it be that way. I don't see what your job has to do with the discussion here, unless you're going to be referring us to a reliable piece you did on the media bias/blackout. -- nae'blis 18:33, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
"Appeal to authority"? roflol! Nae'blis, with all due respect, you're silly.
The fact remains you made an error about these murders and the Virginia Tech murder timelines, then you tried to excuse your error by saying it was somehow the fault of people for NOT posting a Wiki entry until April.
The truth is that this is YOUR fault for NOT READING ANY OF THE NEWS STORIES. That you don't just admit you made a mistake really says a lot, and it's not positive.
I'm really not trying to be snarky, but you're a Wiki admin and you made that kind of error? Commenting on articles BEFORE you read even one news story on it? Could this be why Wikipedia is the online source we laugh about in newsrooms?
One other irony you brought up in your bundle of excuses: why wasn't an article posted here until April about such heinous murders that happened four months before? Could it be that it wasn't known very much outside the Knoxville area?
I certainly didn't know about it, and I do this for a living (oh wait, it's appeal to authority again. Kind of like the very same appeal to authority that Nae'blis used at the very beginning of this subhead: "I'm not seeing much evidence of a "media blackout" on this matter. Fact is, carjackings and murders happen every day that don't make national headlines (I know, it's part of my job).")
That may explain why Nae'blis had no idea of the timeline of these murders. You wouldn't know if all you did was read headlines and not read the content of news stories upon which headlines are based.
But one needn't be an authority to know you don't make sweeping remarks without first reading source material for yourself. Nae'blis, I sure hope you've found this to be useful in your Wiki duties, if not in the appeal to authority "national headlines" you say you do as part of your job. Simplemines 18:58, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
(de-indent) Okay, we're sort of ranging afield of the actual article subject, so if you want to take it to a user talk page I won't mind. When I said carjackings and murders happen every day that don't get national attention, I mean that locally (here in KC) things happen every day that don't hit CNN and the national media, of every racial/ethnic combination. I'm not sure you understand the state of the article in mid-April; it had none of the current sources for the media bias/controversy section, and when asked editors were posting blogs and Opinion page material. Repeated postings in the article drew some of us to try to post on the talk page to reach some sort of compromise, which led to some rapid-fire posting and statements that were perhaps more blanket than if we'd had a looser time frame. That's the way talk pages go sometime, but the intent all along has been to tighten up and improve the article. I don't believe I've made any case of my being an admin having any bearing on the editing here. -- nae'blis 21:16, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
I rather doubt stories with this particular combination of sadism, savagery and brutality don't make national headlines. One might very well suspect that there is some very odd reason why this story (still) hasn't received the attention justified by the details of the crime.
The middle of April was three weeks ago. I had no problem finding original sources from the3 Knoxville area dated in January when the murders occurred.
Likewise, many of the blogs cite primary newspaper sources, so all one had to do was click on those links to find something one could use here (but hopefully READ first.)
With all due respect, Nae'blis, you jumped into an article without reading any of the source material, and that is the source from which all your problems stem. It's an egregious mistake for someone who is allegedly an admin, and it's a mistake for which you're still making excuses.
It's inexplicable to me how one can even attempt to "tighten up and improve" an article when one has no knowledge of the actual event from primary sources. Do you usually just jump in without bothering to at least learn about the basic facts of the incident?
As I said before, I am not trying to be snarky. I'm just kind of incredulous that someone in charge of anything would do something like this, and then twist one's self into a pretzel trying to do everything possible NOT to admit the mistake one has made.
This isn't a case of "gotcha." It's a case of "do the right thing." Admit you didn't read the original stories before you took it upon yourself to play editor. Simplemines 23:09, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
You're making a lot of assumptions about how I approached this article, based on a single comment on the talk page. I've admitted above in this section that I misread the initial coverage; why do you keep saying I need to 'admit' it? You're ignoring a lot of the other things I did; I removed unsourced and biased information, trawled through some of the blogs looking for reliable sources, and added several where I could find them. I know there are news sources dating back to January because I helped put some of them in the article! That doesn't explain why the article here didn't start until April, and when it did it debuted with some very shaky information about some living and recently dead people, which I took great care to excise where it was not sourced.
I'm very confused as to what your general point is, unless you're just railing against Wikipedia, in which case I suggest that this particular talk page is not a good forum for that. The Village Pump might be better... I also take a good deal of offense at you saying I am 'allegedly' an admin; if you'd prefer I did not have the bit (which again, has had nothing to do with my editing here), please see this page. -- nae'blis 00:32, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes, Nae'blis, you are confused.
You never said you "misread" the intial coverage. It's clear you NEVER read it until after you started editing the article. You seem to think that your screw-up of the timeframe of these murders is the fault of the OP for not posting the article right after the murders happened (and amazingly, you display little to no curiosity as to why it took so long for this story to surface as a Wiki article.)
In fact, I assume nothing; my remarks towards you are based on several comments you made on this page (including the funny discussion of the use of the word "alleged.")
I did assume one needed a rather thick skin to be a Wiki admin, so I apologize if you found the use of the word "alleged" regarding your Wiki admin status to be offensive. I see from your profile that you majored in sociology and that you don't seem to have any journalism credentials, so perhaps the fault is mine for expecting too much.
Common sense would dictate that one should have a good grasp of basic facts before one attempts to edit anything. So consider it to be a learning experience; surely we can all use that, right?
Let me explain why I'm beating this dead horse into canned dog food: I found a lot of the explanation for how this article has been treated to be astonishing and enraging. I'm angry because I didn't know about it until it was referenced in a newsletter I got within the past few days. And (appeal to authority here) I write and edit news for a living. I never heard about this story until I read that newsletter. And when I came here to see what had been done, it didn't do much to assuage my anger.
Unless you've something germaine to add, I'd be happy to let this 'discussion' lapse. And if it's any comfort, you are actually not nearly as bad as your fellow Wiki admin whose quotes are also on this page.
I just hope that guy doesn't actually get paid to do this.

Simplemines 07:03, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Whether there is a media blackout or not (i tend to think there is). Black on white hate crimes are too politically incorrect and don't sell. They don't cater to the mass-media's advertisers and if you are CNN, NBC, FOX or whoever and show this sort of crime as a hate crime then you risk losing advertising partners and support from certain groups who pour cash into the channel.Zeph1 14:59, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Photographs

Can someone attach mug shots of the verpetrators and photos of the victims?

There were some, but the PC police took them down.
A bot removed them because they had no source information, not because of "PC".
Snopes has pictures of both the victims and the suspects. http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/newsom.asp SupaDane 14:21, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
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