Hello. First thanks for your thoughtful reply. I'll check out the references you cite for sure. I also have possession of crime statistics that support your position. Nationally, we under-report crime by black perpetrators, and lately television and Hollywood have steered clear of black villains. But if you watch local news in many big American cities like Pittsburgh (don't know about New York), most nightly crime stories on all the available local news stations involve black-on-black crime in poor black neighborhoods, in line with most statistics I've seen and those you cite. Proportionally speaking, blacks are way, way over-represented in the national statistics on crime and in the prisons, and not just because of white racism either. One of the points I make in my article is that the national network and cable news organizations favor stories about missing or murdered attractive, young, successful, and respectable white women, although that is not the main point of my article. The history of crime reporting bears this fact out. These stories become a media circus, regardless of the color or socio-economic status of the perpetrators. Furthermore, the race issue really only comes up when the perpetrator and victim are racially distinct (obviously), as in the Nicole Brown murder case. Aside from race, the Rutgers Women's Basketball team members that Don Imus called "nappy-headed hoes" have something in common with, say, Meredith Emerson, the recently brutally murdered (yes, the more is bleeds, the more it leads), college-educated Georgia hiker, who was an attractive, successful, and seemingly upwardly mobile white woman. She has been the centerpiece of CNN.com crime reporting for the past two days. And don't think she's been neglected at FOX, MSNBC, ABC, or CBS either. I notice that it's the educated and upwardly mobile female victims who get most of the press. These are damsels in distress (an old theme). Most importantly, I don't think that any suspect's criminal trial, no matter how despicable the criminal allegations are, ought to be prosecuted in the media. For example, when cable news channels like CNN immediately publish every new bit of damning (for the prime suspect) information released by the police or the prosecutor, the prosecution is basically using the press to do an end-run around the laws regarding the admissibility of evidence in a trial. What gets plastered all over the news media might not even be admissible, legally speaking, yet there it is for everyone to see, there for any potential future juror to be tainted by. Everyone, white/black/Chicano/Asian; male/female/transsexual; heterosexual/homosexual; physically atractive/plain; educated/uneducated, and so on, whether victim or suspect, should be equally mourned when murdered or receive a fair trial when accused. We need to make a distinction between prime-time entertainment shows and serious and objective journalism in this country, and we need to do a better job protecting the American ideal that everyone is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, not in the press.