by David J. Gonzo

Saturday, July 3, 1999 --- New York (APJP) -- This, readers, is simply inexcusable: a major news story is being downplayed by cable news. In fact, it's getting better and more complete coverage by cable sports channels.

In a series of incidents in the city and suburbs of Chicago, minorities were targeted and shot by what witnesses report to be a white gunman seen in a blue car.

Two Asian-Americans were shot at on a major thoroughfare, six orthodox Jews were shot and wounded as they walked home from Sabbath services in four separate shootings, and a retired African-American college basketball coach was shot in the back as he was jogging with his children in suburban Skokie.

All of the shootings occurred within a twelve-mile area between Rogers Park in Chicago and the suburbs of Skokie and Northbrook.

At the time of this writing, Chicago, Skokie and Northbrook police are still investigating and interviewing witnesses and have made no arrests.

Yet the lack of press coverage on this Saturday morning -- especially on the part of the cable news stations -- is deplorable.

Here we have a story that resonates with two of the most inflammatory of hot-button issues in political and social circles -- guns and race -- and all we are seeing on the cable news channels is perfunctory two-and-a-half-minutes at the top of the hour coverage of a developing story.

One can practically predict the excuses of line producers who call the regarding what gets on the air at these stations: no dramatic helicopter shots or local stations breaking in along the lines of the shootings at Columbine High School; it happened overnight, not during mid-day; a body count of one doesn't compare to those of Columbine or "railway serial killer" Rafael Ramirez-Rodriguez; the sweltering heat wave sweeping most of the country affects far more people; and it's a holiday weekend, so we're short-staffed and nobody's paying attention anyway.

To which I would say: I've heard more believable pap from Tim Russert.

Make no mistake: this is a bigger story than the manhunt for serial killer Rafael Ramirez-Rodriguez.  This is a more significant story than the shootings in Littleton -- which you all continue to cover ad nauseam (CNN and MSNBC both covered the release of yet another Columbine shooting victim from the hospital).

And it should be getting more coverage.  But it won't.

And there's one simple reason, and that is the very crux of the story: multiple minorities were targeted by someone with a whole lot of firepower.

This story plays to two key issues on which the nation will be holding a de facto referndum next November, and the media is already trying to "shape" these issues.

The first is an angry, reactionary resurgence of very real racism and intolerance in our nation, a shameful reflex response by a tiny minority of hate-obsessed whites to strides made toward getting their fair slice of the American by some minorities.

The second is the quick-and-dirty, easy access to guns by the intolerant few who would play out their anger in very real and fatal terms.  They may be few -- but they pose a bigger threat to liberty and safety than background checks and mandatory registration of all firearms.

The reason that the story is getting more coverage on sports programming is that the sole fatality was a former college basketball coach at Northwestern University, the flamboyant and controversial Ricky Byrdsong, who died at Evanston Hospital early this morning following emergency surgery.  Skokie police Lt. Barry Silverberg said that at least seven shots were fired at Byrdsong.

And so one might be left wondering if the very elements that make this story more important than Columbine and Ramirez -- targeting of multiple minority groups and fast-and-easy firepower -- are in fact the reason that cable news are playing it down.

I, however, feel there is no question that the on-duty honchos don't want to handle this "hot potato" of a story.

Yes, television news decision-makers are often eager to do lofty-sounding reports on the continuing racial divide in America, but there is a pattern in these stories of distancing and entirely disconnecting them from the continuing violence committed against minorities, with firearms more often than not the tool of choice -- that is, unless the producers can pull a stunt such as tying violence committed by a couple of high-school kids against young jocks (think broadcast sports revenues and the glorification of athletes by broadcasters and advertisers) to the new competitor to broadcast media, the Internet and computer games (think revenue that giants like GE, Disney, Westinghouse and Time-Warner are already losing).

Worse yet, the promotion of this story may actually induce voters to think twice before pulling that GOP lever about sixteen months from today.  Could this have something to do with the Republican-backed broadcast spectrum giveaway to big media and Telecom companies?  Believe me, the news "gatekeepers" and producers know where their paychecks are coming from -- and who is bolstering the health of their owners' business.

So next time some fool tells you that the media is unbiased or "liberal," ask them why the present story received only a fraction of the attention that the Littleton shootings got.

Because, in the coming days and weeks, you can be sure it will.