On Oct. 7, 1998, University of Wyoming student Matthew Sheperd left a bar with two men and got into their truck. Not long after, Sheperd was robbed, pistol-whipped and left tied to a fence for 18 hours in near-freezing temperatures. Five days later, on Oct. 12, Sheperd died. He was gay.
The following day, the New York Times, having already written one article on Sheperd’s beating, placed the news of his death on the front page. The following is from the first column of the story:
“His death . fanned the outrage that followed word of the attack, spawning vigils, producing calls for Federal hate-crimes legislation from President Clinton and fueling debates over such laws in a host of Western States, including Wyoming, that have resisted them.”
That same day, in an editorial entitled “Murdered for Who He Was,” the Times wrote that homosexuals “have always” been among the victims of a “murderous impulse” that in America has “often” caused members of minority groups to pay “a terrible price” just for being who they are.
Keeping in mind that comprehensive rebuke, turn your attention to September of 1999 and the death of Jesse Dirkhising.
According to the affidavit filed in the circuit court of Benton County, Ark., Josh Brown, with friend Davis Carpenter as an audience, “snuck up on Dirkhising, tied his hands behind his back, placed a pair of underwear in Dirkhising’s mouth and secured them with a bandanna and duct tape.” The rest of the affidavit, with language conveying imagery too sickening to be quoted verbatim, notes how Dirkhising was raped for hours with an assortment of objects, then left to suffocate to death.
Dirkhising was 13.
The torture and killing of Jesse Dirkhising occurred on Sept. 26, 1999, and the next day, The New York Times, The Washington Post and all of the major news networks mentioned nothing about it. On Sept. 28th, The New York Times, The Washington Post and all the major news networks mentioned nothing about it. On Sept. 29th the . well, you get the point.
By April 2 of this year, The New York Times had yet to burden itself with even a paragraph about the murder, and CBS, NBC, ABC and CNN likewise had reported nothing. The Washington Post, finally scraping together whatever integrity it could find, had produced two “squibs” on the case.
Confused by the silence? Well, consider this: Dirkhising’s two killers are homosexual. Still confused?
Matthew Sheperd, Jesse Dirkhising and the disproportionate coverage of their murders are topics that have surfaced-sort of-in the news, following last month’s conviction of one of Dirkhising’s accused rapist-killers. A show of outrage, heretofore impossible because no one knew of anything about which to be outraged, is starting to simmer beneath the long and calculated indifference of the mainstream media.
One reason for this restlessness is political columnist Andrew Sullivan.
Writing in the April 2 edition of The New Republic, Sullivan, who is gay, asked: “So why the obsession with Sheperd and the indifference with regard to Dirkhising?”
According to Sullivan, the Sheperd case “was hyped for political reasons: to build support for inclusion of homosexuals in a federal hate-crimes law. The Dirkhising case was ignored for political reasons: squeamishness about reporting a story that could feed anti-gay prejudice”.
The knowledge that the media has a political agenda is not a bulletin; and, actually, most people know and accept it: making an unsuccessful attempt to advertise Al Gore is relatively harmless. However, when that political agenda prevents the telling of a major news event, and when that political agenda passively dishonors the death of a 13 year-old, it is time for the public to pause, reflect, and become furious.
There are reasons major news organizations should shield the public from a news event; reasons, for instance, that involve America’s national security or the protection of children. But beyond those considerations, there is almost no other-certainly not the case of Jesse Dirkhising-which redeems the unwillingness of a self-described news organization to report all that is news.
Anti-gay prejudice definitely would have been inflamed by the report of Dirkhising’s murder, but the fallout from that prejudice, had there been any, is the responsibility of politicians and policemen, not journalists posing as moral exhibitionists. It is not the role of the national media to play nanny to homosexuals or to any other group perceived as a “victim.” If the media does want to be a nanny, then they better not report crimes by Jews for fear of increasing anti-Semitism; they better not report black-on-white crime for fear of increasing white racism; they better not .
Matthew Sheperd’s murder understandably elicited a nation’s sigh, but the death of Jesse Dirkhising was equally upsetting. He too deserved a long, loud lament and an all-night vigil and a speech from the president and cries for justice and an editorial in the nation’s most powerful newspaper.
Instead, he got a political agenda.
So the next time you are reading the newspaper or watching the nightly news, tame your inclination to trust and remember that you may not be getting the full story.
Or any at all.
Matt Emerson is a freshman majoring in political science.
