The communist rag known as the Baltimore Sun used to run minor crime notices; even had a ‘police blotter’. When suggesting that a crime might have been committed in this east coast tourist trap became politically incorrect, this ended. Unless reporting on a white on black crime The Sun will not acknowledge the race of either party. If three white dudes are robbing people at gun point I want to know. Now we are left to assume that all criminals are black, since that is the safer bet if you have no facts. The local TV stations have adopted the same polices. The Sun will generally now only report on controversial crimes and crime in the context of being solved by our ruling counsel. The Sun also reports falsified ‘juked’ Baltimore City Police statistics, though some reporters have questioned their veracity.

The long time free weekly the City Paper took up the slack for a decade with a crime blotter—even publishing a murder map—though they would not give visual descriptions of suspects. Last year I noticed that that paper had changed format and no longer had a police blotter. They instead reported on community crime in a scattered personal interest context. Just last week I saw a news report that The Baltimore Sun had acquired the City Paper.

I realize that social media has taken up a lot of the slack and has pressured the police and their cronies in the press to take some actions. However, it is chilling that the remaining print press is actively taking a role in suppressing crime news.

I was reminded of this Mommy Matrix trend when I picked up the February 27, 2014 issue of the East County Times, which still serves a community that is not entirely centralized and politicized. The publication has a 911 page in the old image of a community advisor, actually intended to aid readers by informing them. It also demonstrates a close relationship with the Baltimore County Police Department, indicating that the press can work with law enforcement without being owned by corrupt politicians. I will give the headlines with an astirex after every headline that would also have been covered by the urban counterpart:

Four injured in Kingsville house fire*

New strategy to patrol online marketplace*

Shooting outside of Dukes Motel on Pulaski Highway [this is right on the city line]

Rosedale man convicted of second degree murder [describes a gruesome stabbing/immolation at the hands of the convicted and associates, who are apparently at large after testifying]

Crime prevention tips

Precinct 11/Essex [3 burglaries and an armed robbery]

Crime trends [This is huge, with robbery and burglary patterns noted. You will rarely see the Baltimore Sun or City Paper imply that the market they ‘serve’ and report on has any disturbing crime trends.]

What’s more the East County Times is free.

Ah-ha, that must be it—yes deductive pat on the back old boy. The large corporate politically connected Baltimore Sun, supported by large advertisers, downplays crime in the 8th most violent City in America. And the free East County Times does 1970’s style crime reporting. Might there be a correlation?

Corporate TV programming is obsessed with crime, particularly with the idea that a couple of serial killers are out their hunting us and slaughtering us in droves. The level of ‘save our nation’ panic in some of these shows is astounding, and evokes WWII war movies. What really interests me is the fact that with 24 hour crime TV stations, on which predominantly female audiences view dozens of murder cases a day, and the vast popularity of crime scene investigation shows and FBI profiling shows, that the typical TV viewer and newspaper reader will be more ignorant about his or her local crimescape than in any previous age. Even when a crime trend story does [as with female joggers being robbed by teenage boys] break it gives little information as far as identifying the threat.

There was a case of a serial rapist in Baltimore some years ago in which most of us thought the perpetrator was white, since he had been raping petite black girls exclusively. The girls on my crew were trying to keep an eye on creepy white guys, not knowing, until after the man was caught, what the victims had told the police, which was that the rapist was black. One of my cashiers [a black girl who fit the profile of the victims] said afterward, “Wow Mister Jimmy, it would have been nice to know they were lookin’ for a black rapist. I might have got in that dude’s car just to avoid the white guy I thought was skulkin’ around.”

I won’t attempt to connect any more dots here. What is painfully obvious is that Baltimore’s newspaper is in the business of shaping opinion, not informing the public. I am certainly thankful for the East County Times for remaining a newspaper, rather than a 24-page op/ed rag.