The protest paradigm revisited

Did the No. 3 story at the Fair 'n' Balanced Network on Thursday evening look familiar?

A crowd gathered Wednesday evening to protest the shooting of an armed suspect by Missouri cops, but no mention was made of the 9-year-old girl who had been shot dead by an unknown assailant just seven miles away the night before.

Here's a hint. Return with us to those thrilling days of yesteryear -- December 2014, for example, and the events following the resignation of a police officer in Ferguson, Mo.:

If the message in the day's top story is a little subtle, see if you find some conceptual suggestions in the links:

2014/12/03/where-outrage-st-louis-bosnian-community-sees-hammer-murder-as-hate-crime/

2014/12/02/protests-sparse-after-pack-hammer-wielding-teens-beats-man-to-death-in-shadow/

2014/12/11/bosnian-immigrant-attack-where-are-sharpton-jackson-as-more-black-lives-go-to

Given the ways that news organizations structure their reward systems, you have to wonder: Do you get to park next to Roger Ailes's space for a week if you're the first Fox staffer to find a case that those angry black people ought to be spending their energy on instead?

Four legs good, two legs better

Hey, kids! See if you can spot the subtle differences in the Fair 'n' Balanced treatment of these two stories of race, new media and the academy!

The tale above reached the No. 4 spot on the homepage today, though it broke out over the weekend in the local press. In a fit of pique somewhere on the continuum between GET OFF MY LAWN!!! and actually cutting eyeholes in the old pillowcases, a very senior political science professor left a comment on a New York Times editorial, complaining (among other things) that:

Every Asian student has a very simple old American first name that symbolizes their desire for integration. Virtually every black has a strange new name that symbolizes their lack of desire for integration.

If that seems like the sort of attitude that makes white men seem like a "problem population" for universities, meet our next case, which accounted for four frontpage stories at Fox over 10 days, starting thus:

Critics say a newly-hired Boston University professor has crossed the line with recent tweets bashing whites, but the school says it’s simply free speech.

You make the call: "White masculinity isn’t a problem for america’s colleges, white masculinity is THE problem for america’s colleges.”

Starting to form a picture of the differences here? She's junior (PhD 2014, about to take up her appointment at BU), and she's attacking the most persecuted minority in America, and ... OK, the rest is going to be on the final. (Hint: Why are his comments "racial" while hers are "racist"?) By comparison, here's Fox's lede on the Duke story:

A Duke University professor was defiant after the school last week condemned his "noxious" and "offensive" words in a letter published in The New York Times in which he compared African-Americans unfavorably to Asian-Americans.

Notice something else? Here's a clue from the N&O story:
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