Furor over assault of gay teens by gang is misplaced

The outrage over the brutal and sadistic assault of two gay teens in the Bronx borough of New York City makes me wonder of this country really .

Why are is there outrage over this relatively isolated incident and not the daily beatings that occur on the streets of New York and every American city? Every day many more men and women are beaten for reasons other than sexual orientation, race, or religion. According to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports, in 2008 there were 1, 382,012 acts of violent crime of all type.In the same year there was 9,160 hate crimes of all type.

That is an enormous difference.A difference that should cause a person to question whether if activist groups have an undue influence upon the reporters and editors of our nation's media outlets.

Violent Crime is violent crime. There is no moral difference between the beating of a person because of their sexual orientation or the beating of a person because they belong to another gang. Both are equally wrong. To differentiate because of the reason behind the attack is to inject a bias into how society views a crime that can only pervert justice.Activists only care about justice in terms of how it impacts the community they represent. The media should always be aware of that fact.

At one level, I understand why the media reports these incidents. They are sure to provoke strong emotional reactions fron large segments of the population. Emotions that will ensure more hits and longer stays on the websites as the outraged vent their anger. Sensationalism is a time tested revenue generator.

But from a journalistic perspective, I really have to question the decision to single out these incidents. It presents a distorted picture of not just the actual state of hate-influenced crime, but distracts the audience from the far more significant issue--of violent crime in general. One is a relatively minor issue, the other a major sociological problem.The news should reflect that difference.

Of course, this is not the only area where we find the media reporting certain crimes with a regularity that is way are out of proportion to their actual occurrence. How many times have we seen the media make a huge story out of the disappearance of an attractive white women? Too many to count.

What happened in the Bronx was barbaric and should repulse anyone with a conscious. But sadly, such incidents are not rare.As the violent crime statistics show, we are a nation plagued by acts of brutality. The media should not be bewailing one type of crime while ignoring another, far larger, one.