The article in question is here: http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/18/puerto.rico.gay.teen.slain/index.html

CNN website ran article today on death of a 19 year old man in Puerto Rico (Jorge Mercado) who was found on a roadside decapitated and partially burned. While I appreciate CNN's handling of tragic events 99% of the time, in this case it was clear that the author had spun the article to turn it into an extension of the debate over the hate crimes bill President Obama passed a month ago. I think it's fairly obvious why the author did it- the more partisan and argumentative the reactions to an article are, the more viewers it is likely to attract. Let me make it clear that I have no problem with political analysis. What I cannot tolerate is when news sources decide to skip the meaningful reporting of a tragedy just to encourage more heated comments in a discussion box.

The first warning sign I saw in the article was the title itself. Why is the murderer the subject and not the victim? The victim is only briefly mentioned in the first two paragraphs (which simply rehash the information given in the photo caption), and is basically ignored for the rest of the article. We get plenty of information on the murderer, however, from where he lived, to when he was arrested, to how many of his cars got impounded by the police. Another chunk of the of the article is used as a soapbox by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force to demand a government investigation of the crime and to advertise their Facebook advocacy group. The US Attorney's Office then gets two paragraphs to say they're not making any progress. Finally, we get a brief history of the (completely irrelevant) original 1969 hate crimes bill thrown in at the end.

Something is missing, however. There is not a single reaction or quote from any of the victim's family, friends, or local community anywhere in the article. We get no information into the man's background other than his age, and certainly no insight as to why this particular person was chosen as a target. It's as if the only “real” news here is that the trial might result in an application of the hate crimes bill, not that a young American was viciously murdered and mutilated overseas. With that in mind, we have to ask ourselves a few hard questions:

-Does anyone really think that the primary concern of the these parents right now is whether their son's murderer is going to be tried as having committed “hate murder” or just “murder”? What about grieving over the loss of their innocent child? Wouldn't THAT be important?

-Are we really expected to believe that this crime occurred simply because a lone psychopath popped up in Puerto Rico who inexplicably hated gay people and decided to murder (and possibly even rape) one of them because of it? Or is there perhaps a underlying environment of violence and poverty where the victim lived that could have lead to this violent act?

-And if there are underlying social issues behind this tragedy, isn't it worth reporting them so readers can make their own conclusions and work on fixing these trends in their own communities?

Obviously the authors of this article did not consider these questions particularly important, as they completely blew them off in favor of the same insensitive, shameless journalism that we've become accustomed to in the partisan media. If that's what it takes to spark a debate these days, then heck, I'm not participating.