Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Media Fails to Cover Good News About Iberville--No Murders in Over a Year

For the Night Out Against Crime 2010 residents and supporters of the Iberville Housing Development held a press conference to announce that the neighborhood is one the few in New Orleans to have gone through the last year murder free. The relative safety of Iberville in comparison to most of the city's other neighborhoods contradicts the image, carefully nurtured by the corporate media and real estate developers, that the neighborhood, indeed all public housing developments, is a de-facto killing field. Not wanting to put forward information that challenges the crime friendly depiction of public housing, the Times-Picayune and the television news reports on New Orleans television chanels 4, 6, 8 and 26 passed on invitations to cover the Iberville's Tuesday Night Out Against Crime press conference.

The refusal of the corporate news media to cover the good news on the crime front from Iberville is in stark contrast to what happens when a murder does occur in the neighborhood. When a murder does occur in Iberville, as it does at some point or another in virtually all New Orleans neighborhoods, news crews from the Times-Picayune and channels 4,6, 8. and 26 can be counted on to cover the tragedy. The slanted news coverage of the crime issue as it pertains to Iberville sends a loud and clear message of the type of image of Iberville that the media sends to the general public.

Mike Howells

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