A Day in the Life
My favorite time of the workday is the morning, particularly when I get to work, as I did this morning, before anyone else. I have been pulling into an empty parking lot at The Santa Fe Reporter for many years now. I love the silence of the day before the office gets going. And I like my little journalistic routine. First, I read the daily papers then I start scanning the online headlines, checking out which NY Times articles were the ones most e-mailed ( a fascinating little feature that must be of great use to the editors), and then bopping around online from story to story, link to link, trying to see what's happening out there in the world.
Usually it's not very good news.
The big, and sad, story in Santa Fe this week is the gay bashing of 21-year-old James Maestas, who remains on life support according to today's daily papers
Every since I interviewed Noam Chomsky a few months back I've been trying to read other media with a slightly-more dissecting attitude because I was so fascinated by the way Chomsky broke down what seemed to me to be relatively benign news stories and found their biases, their lapses, their structural problems. Well, I'm no Noam Chomsky, but here are my reactions to the stories.
The New Mexican focused on Maestas' current condition, which is terrible. They had access to the family's spokeswoman, which the Journal North did not have. That story also mentions that DA Henry Valdez could use the 2003 hate crime ordinance if the grand jury finds a hate crime occurred, but the story does not explain what using that ordinance would mean. It also quotes the family spokeswoman as saying one would not expect a crime such as this to occur in Santa Fe, but doesn't say whether there have been other high-profile gay hate crimes (which there have been; Noah Rodriguez pops to mind), nor does it say whether the 2003 hate crime law has been used before.
The Journal North story is very bizarre, as its lead focuses on Maestas' popularity, including the fact that being openly gay didn't hurt his popularity in high school and that his former dance teacher found him to be the best male dancer he'd ever taught. As far as I could tell, Maestas' popularity in high school somehow makes his beating even more surprising, although I'm not sure why.
Neither story focused on a few questions I have, such as is it relevent that all the parties in the beating—victim and perpetrators—were Hispanic? Because from my memory that seems to have been a trend in the gay hate crimes I remember from the past several years. Even more pressing, why was some guy who sodomized a 4 year old running around free?
Usually it's not very good news.
The big, and sad, story in Santa Fe this week is the gay bashing of 21-year-old James Maestas, who remains on life support according to today's daily papers
Every since I interviewed Noam Chomsky a few months back I've been trying to read other media with a slightly-more dissecting attitude because I was so fascinated by the way Chomsky broke down what seemed to me to be relatively benign news stories and found their biases, their lapses, their structural problems. Well, I'm no Noam Chomsky, but here are my reactions to the stories.
The New Mexican focused on Maestas' current condition, which is terrible. They had access to the family's spokeswoman, which the Journal North did not have. That story also mentions that DA Henry Valdez could use the 2003 hate crime ordinance if the grand jury finds a hate crime occurred, but the story does not explain what using that ordinance would mean. It also quotes the family spokeswoman as saying one would not expect a crime such as this to occur in Santa Fe, but doesn't say whether there have been other high-profile gay hate crimes (which there have been; Noah Rodriguez pops to mind), nor does it say whether the 2003 hate crime law has been used before.
The Journal North story is very bizarre, as its lead focuses on Maestas' popularity, including the fact that being openly gay didn't hurt his popularity in high school and that his former dance teacher found him to be the best male dancer he'd ever taught. As far as I could tell, Maestas' popularity in high school somehow makes his beating even more surprising, although I'm not sure why.
Neither story focused on a few questions I have, such as is it relevent that all the parties in the beating—victim and perpetrators—were Hispanic? Because from my memory that seems to have been a trend in the gay hate crimes I remember from the past several years. Even more pressing, why was some guy who sodomized a 4 year old running around free?
posted by Julia at 8:01 AM
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