Thread: Law & Order is STUFFED.

Melbourne radio presenter apologises for interview wrongly blaming 'African guys' for gang attack

Melbourne radio presenter apologises for interview wrongly blaming 'African guys' for gang attack | Australia news | The Guardian

Originally Posted by DiscoMick

Melbourne radio presenter apologises for interview wrongly blaming 'African guys' for gang attack

Melbourne radio presenter apologises for interview wrongly blaming 'African guys' for gang attack | Australia news | The Guardian

So the interview with the family members is wrong then? They’re the ones who described the attackers in the first place, as shown in Trouts post.

Originally Posted by Chops

So the interview with the family members is wrong then? They’re the ones who described the attackers in the first place, as shown in Trouts post.

Yes, it appears so. "Mark" the person interviewed, got the "African" info from a female who was involved in the same attack. Whilst this new info does not change the severity of the attack, I have no idea why she would describe the attackers as "African" when they obviously weren't?
Pickles.

Originally Posted by Pickles2

... ... .... ..
I have no idea why she would describe the attackers as "African" when they obviously weren't?
Pickles.

One possibility is that because of the deluge of comments from some politicians and some media outlets about African gangs, that an instinctive reaction by some people is to assume that "perpetrators of violence" and "African gangs" are synonymous terms.

That isn't an unusual phenomenon. A similar thing has happened with the term people use to describe one of the techniques used by firefighters. Because the vast majority of people have been describing it as "back burning" instead of "hazard reduction burning", that is now the term that even more people use. It has become imprinted in people's minds as the default term for any burning activity.

Originally Posted by Pickles2

Yes, it appears so. "Mark" the person interviewed, got the "African" info from a female who was involved in the same attack. Whilst this new info does not change the severity of the attack, I have no idea why she would describe the attackers as "African" when they obviously weren't?
Pickles.

It seems my speculation was a bit more charitable than that offered by some (equally unqualified) commentators.

I have seen some suggest it was a deliberate comment designed to discredit African youth. If that was the intention, then it worked because a lot of Facebook "experts" are continuing to assert that they were an African gang.

However, you are right. We don't know. We are only guessing.

There certainly seem to be some people who are determined to blame everything possible on 'African youth', even without evidence.
Obviously, some areas have a youth crime problem, but singling out one group to blame is just nasty, I reckon.

Originally Posted by vnx205

It seems my speculation was a bit more charitable than that offered by some (equally unqualified) commentators.

I have seen some suggest it was a deliberate comment designed to discredit African youth. If that was the intention, then it worked because a lot of Facebook "experts" are continuing to assert that they were an African gang.

However, you are right. We don't know. We are only guessing.

Well, in this case, the "African" association was clearly, & blatantly, wrong. But you know what, there are some in the community who will use this as an example of bias & misleading press, to promote their cause, and to say that this is typical, and that in reality there is no such problem, whereas unfortunately, in reality, there is.
Pickles.

Originally Posted by DiscoMick

There certainly seem to be some people who are determined to blame everything possible on 'African youth', even without evidence.
Obviously, some areas have a youth crime problem, but singling out one group to blame is just nasty, I reckon.

The actual crime statistics for the western Melbourne area indicate that "African youth" are not overly represented in the statistics, indeed they align with everyone else but you would not know it from media reporting.

Garry