The Oregonian covers up race-based attacks (Laurelhurst Park, Portland, OregonLive)
Matt Drudge links to a The Oregonian story entitled "Portland police shorten hours at Laurelhurst Park after reports of group of teen boys attacking others" (link) with the text "COPS: Drunken mob of 150 teenagers run wild in Portland..."
The Oregonian story doesn't give any indication about any motivations for the attacks or who was involved beyond saying that a police representative said that the incidents do not appear to be gang-related and there is nothing so far indicating bias crimes.
I've never been to Portland, but I was intrigued. Could the attackers be a rogue Occupy Wall Street contingent? WTO protesters who retired to Portland? Hairy hippies harassing with Hacky Sacks? I wondered if Laurelhurst Park was in a bad neighborhood, but that doesn't seem to be the case. It also looks like an attractive, albeit small place. I was intrigued.
Then, I scrolled into the comments and saw this from user ZZ44:
You'll note they've removed three of my posts drawing attention to the fact they are purposely not using police quotes identifying the suspects as African-American. That was the point I was making. All the other news outlets are reporting the story, with quotes. The Oregonian had to heavily edit the story to leave that out.
In fact, that's what the Oregonian did. See the table below comparing The Oregonian report to one from KATU (link).
Not only that, but further down in the comments another user points out several typos in the article. Susan Gage, managing editor of The Oregonian (and responsible for their online content) replies "Thanks for flagging all the typos. Believe we have cleaned the story up." Others then reply to her, asking why Oregon Live sanitized their report. Needless to say, she doesn't reply to that.
See the table below, then take a few minutes and send emails to those listed on biz.oregonian.com/newsroom/?act=cntc letting them know that you know what they're doing.
Here's a table comparing the OregonLive story to similar paragraphs from KATU:
| OregonLive | KATU |
|
Portland's bureaus of Police and Parks will join forces this weekend to increase security in Laurelhurst Park after reports of two large-scale fights there Wednesday and Thursday nights.
According to those who reported the incidents to police, both assaults involved a large group of teenage boys who attacked either an individual or a small group. |
Portland Police are investigating two "large-scale" fights that happened in Laurelhurst Park in Southeast Portland earlier this week.
According to Sgt. Pete Simpson, both fights involved groups of black teenagers randomly attacking people in the park. |
| Officers found the boy, who said he'd been with a friend when he was attacked by five to 10 other boys who seemed to be randomly attacking others, including at least one transient. The boy said the group also stole his cell phone, his iPod, his headphones and a hat. | According to Simpson, the victim [note: the same victim as in the left column] told officers he was with a friend in the park when he was punched from behind. He said his attackers were 5-10 black teenagers who were randomly attacking white teens in the park. He said they also attacked a homeless man. ...The victim said the attackers stole his cell phone, iPod, headphones and hat. |
| When they arrived, officers didn't see a fight but found three adult men who said they had been attacked by 20 to 30 teenage boys. | They didn't find the fight when they arrived but did find three men who said they were attacked by a group of 20-30 black teenagers, Simpson said. |