The trouble with breaking news
The story as it currently looks now is here. As you can see when you look at the dateline, the story has been updated. This happens often with breaking news stories as more information comes in and reporters are able to get more of the story. But what was it updated from in this case?
Thanks to some Googling, we were able to find the text of the story as it originally appeared on Chicago Breaking News. Here it is in case the online version goes away:
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CHICAGO (WBBM) -- Hate crime charges are being considered against five people who, police say, robbed a man early this morning on a CTA train.Police say it was just after midnight. A group of mostly teenagers surrounded a man on a Red Line train. One took his cell phone. He resisted. Then they jumped him, beating him.They got off the train at Grand Avenue. The victim got off at Division and stopped some cops on the street.Five suspects were soon in custody, identified by the victim.Police say he was wearing a yarmulke and prosecutors are considering hate crime charges, suggesting he was targeted because he's Jewish. As you can see, it was originally reported as a possible hate crime. The Chicago Breaking News story was later changed to a second version that is also not available on their site, but we found it here. The most interesting part is the reaction of the victim upon being told by friends that the theft of his phone was being billed as a hate crime:
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If you were to read the story as it looks today though, you wouldn't see this quote or even any mention of a possible hate crime. |
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Many people did see the original version though, even people who were friends of the victim. The question then arises, if the police didn't mention that this might have been a hate crime and the victim didn't think it was a hate crime, who decided that it was a "possible hate crime?" I hope the answer isn't what I think it is. |
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UPDATE: I spoke with the Tribune's James Janega about this on Friday, May 14. He said he will look into it and get back to me sometime this week. Any information I receive will be posted here as it comes in. UPDATE II: James got back to me about this some time ago, but I've only now gotten around to updating this post. The source for the information that this was a possible hate crime was the police. While that may satisfy some, several people I spoke with agreed that a lone policeman's hypothesis or even the word of a police spokesman is insufficient to put such an allegation into the story. One of the people who felt this way is the person in charge of the Sun-Times News Group's breaking news service (sort of a Chicago-area Associated Press). He actually recalled coming in to work the day this happened. One of his people was concerned that they weren't on the "hate crime angle." After looking at the details, he assured them that there wasn't enough there to call it a hate crime. I guess that's why the STNG wire is a paid service while Chicago Breaking News is free for all.
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