News organisations need to ask themselves why they are making the framing decisions they are making and whether this actually reinforces racial division.

also, if you look at other versions of the headline, in only one case is the race of the victim added. in the other it is elided.

Both situations utterly tragic. Both victims 20 years old or younger. The country is too violent. I’m always trying not to turn into someone’s driveway upstate because I know so many homeowners are strapped and scared. It’s horrible, but the framing of stories matters too.

The main problem here is that we often don’t see coverage of many of the very same atrocities that afflict American life if there is not a racial (or identity) angle to the story.

And yet…

@thomaschattwill I don’t know if you have ever experienced the sort of grief that follows the murder of a loved one. If you haven’t, consider yourself lucky. I’ve followed your writing and arguments for a while and I know Twitter can be a toxic place, so I know what you are getting at with your…

@aeconwright I appreciate this but certainly am not dismissing the tragedy of one in service of the other

@thomaschattwill The prosecutor mentioned that "there was a racial component to the case". If that's actually the case, it at least warrants the attention put on the victim's skin color. Anyways, the shooter has the most get-off-my-lawn-or-I-shoot face since Clint Eastwood.

@NoPerSol I agree there may very well have been a racial component to the case. I don’t agree that a racial lens is the most important or overriding lens to apply to every instance of human conflict and tragedy.

@thomaschattwill So you don't think that a crime being racially motivated is of greater concern -- and so worthy of greater attention -- than a similar one that is not? If so, why isn't that just burying your head in the sand?

@thomaschattwill Sorry, in a world where the existence of systemic racism is hotly (if inconceivably) contested, why wouldn’t one get more attention? Just as you aren’t out there comparing differences in the framing stories that don’t give you a racial angle to discuss here on Twitter.

@thomaschattwill However - one shooter was a racist and shot the 16 year old because he was Black. The other was trigger happy and just shot at a car that violated his property. Race was an important factor in the first incident and therefore the picture. Race was not an issue in the second.

@thomaschattwill Like the 4yr old white boy thag was shot point blank by a black guy because he hated white people (NC) and the media ignored it?

@thomaschattwill I put a graph in Woke Fragility to help everyone understand the media's decision tree. It's super complicated and they're totally not pitting us against each other in a cynical bid to increase readership/viewers.

@thomaschattwill This is not sustainable.

@thomaschattwill Except the facts are not at all identical. Kaylin Gillis was in a car w/3 other people who drove down the wrong rural driveway. The shooter never even saw her. Ralph Yarl rang the doorbell & the shooter looked out & saw a black guy so he shot him.

@thomaschattwill Racism porn sells

@thomaschattwill You know why they do this. They`ve been doing it for too long for it to be a coincidence. They know how this affects people and they know the result it causes. The NYT is made of evil people, or people who notice the evil and don`t quit. Like cops, they`re all accountable.

@thomaschattwill The seeming glee that comes from the media's reporting style regarding this stuff is downright ghoulish.

@thomaschattwill I mean do black people really enjoy being a prop that is wheeled out anytime that white leftists feel you could be convenient to take more rights away from white conservatives? Seems dehumanizing to me.