Many readers will know that Crystal Gail Mangum, the accuser of the Duke Lacrosse Team players, was convicted of murder in late November and sentenced to prison. A week or so afterwards, Brent Bozell posted this comprehensive wrap-up at NewsBusters:
On November 22, with the national media focused on the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s death, few noticed the story of a jury in North Carolina convicting Crystal Mangum of murder in the 2011 kitchen stabbing death of her boyfriend Reginald Daye. Why should that fact fixate the national media?
On its own, it shouldn’t. But in 2006 and 2007, Mangum’s false charges of rape against three lacrosse players at Duke University caused a national tsunami of media sensation, an angry wave of prejudiced coverage that presumed the guilt of rich white college boys when accused by an African-American stripper.
More than any other media outlet, the New York Times trumpeted Mangum’s rape accusations, even after they fell apart. As other liberal media outlets were backing away, the Times published a notorious, error-riddled 5,700-word lead story by Duff Wilson on August 25, 2006, arguing there was enough evidence against the players for Michael Nifong, the atrocious local prosecutor (who would be jailed and disbarred) to bring the case to trial.
Within the Times, perhaps the most aggressive accuser was then-sports columnist Selena Roberts, who made a habit of comparing the accused Duke lacrosse players to drug dealers and gang members.
Roberts continued to lob charges of white privilege in her last column on the subject in 2007: “Don’t mess with Duke, though. To shine a light on its integrity has been treated by the irrational mighty as a threat to white privilege. Feel free to excoriate the African-American basketball stars and football behemoths for the misdeeds of all athletes, but lay off the lacrosse pipeline to Wall Street, excuse the khaki-pants crowd of SAT wonder kids.” She lamented “some news media jackknifed as they moved from victim’s advocate to angel-tinting the lacrosse team.”
To Roberts, the false accuser never stopped being the victim. Roberts never wrote a retraction for the columns that relentlessly championed a false narrative. She is the Al Sharpton of sports columnists.
See the FULL STORY HERE.
I guess this means that Ms. Mangum will not be taking advantage of that free college education that Jesse Jackson promised her back when he was so certain of her verisimilitude. [ NOTE: Bill O’Reilly also did a short piece on this story on The Factor yesterday evening. ]