Something to think about.

This is really a TV story, but it's for radio people to think about, too. A couple of weeks ago the Seattle Police gave local TV stations copies of video shot by a witness to a street beating, hoping to stimulate tips. It worked, they say; they've got leads, though no arrests yet. The two victims of the thug attack were Iraq veterans, so the story had hooks beyond the usual caught-on-tape TV news appeal.

Trouble was, the video didn't make clear that perps and victims were all African-Americans. This produced an unexpected reality-TV case study. The cops got dozens of calls and emails asking why the incident wasn't treated as a hate crime--folks assuming the vet-victims were white. Rush Limbaugh also assumed it was a liberal anti-military atrocity and huffed up a textbook example of his modus operandi.

Yes, the story also had legs--the tape was passed on via the TV news biz's national hot-video network and made--uselessly--the local news in markets around the country, stimulating more race-soaked calls and emails. See, there's a place in the local TV news format clock for Violence-Caught-On-Tape, just like there's the Cute Animal Segment and First Alert Traffic-and-Weather-Together. (I understand weather, but why traffic reports on TV? But I digress.)

It isn't news, I suppose, that local news goes national when there's "live" video of nasty events, even when it isn't local. I assume we're all used to local TV news hype techniques, which is probably why TV news is dying. Can't happen fast enough for me.

But is it news that when the video shows black dudes beating on other dudes, it is assumed the other dudes are white? Or vice versa? I guess it isn't. We're still prisoners of our prejudices.

So, what's this got to do with radio? You tell me. At least radio can't mislead with pictures. We've had to find our own ways to stimulate adrenaline. At least we had the good sense to give up trying to do journalism, so we haven't hyped reporting like TV has. We've left that to the talk show hosts. The video? Read all about in the Seattle Times.