Thank you for (re)publishing this troubling and thought provoking analysis of the story(ies) of the sex abuse ring scandal. It still holds up. So much so that by the time I reached the end I had forgotten that I was reading a more than six years old report. I have some comments and questions in response.
I'm an American, and I believe I first became aware of this story sometime in the last few years or so, as I've come to pay more attention to events in Britain and the Anglosphere in general and rely more on information sources from there. But it's possible I may have learned about it earlier than that. I understood the general outlines of the story, that the perpetrators were for the most part Pakistani men and the victims predominantly native British white working class girls who lived in predominantly working class towns and cities. None of the names of the particular towns where these gangs were organized had come to my attention, though.
I suppose what has most shocked me in the recent reports has been the information on the extent, the calculated nature, and the depth of depravity of the attacks on the girls. I had also, I think, been unaware of how long these gangs have been in operation as well as of the extent of the failure of the authorities to prosecute the responsible individuals and shut down these operations.
I am curious as to why you chose The New York Times as your test case media source to measure the degree of intensity of reporting on this story. While the NYT has an international scope it remains primarily focused on the U.S. Am I wrong in assuming that a comparable British national news source would likely have published more stories about this during the same time period?
I want to say more about this. But it's getting late. I hope to return tomorrow sometime to post another comment.
As to why I used the NYT. There are of course two questions:
Why did I use the NYT back in 2018?
Why did I keep the NYT stats rather than changing them out for something in the UK when I revised the piece?
To take them in reverse order. The answer to the second question is that it didn't occur to me to add a change like that to the "minor edits" I intended to make, and if it had I probably would have been too lazy to do it.
As far as the first question I don't recall, but I imagine that I envisioned a US audience, and I was wondering why more of the people I associated with (and who were engaged in what passed for the culture war back then) had never heard of it. Also MH370 was an international story, so I probably felt like I was comparing apples to apples.
I'm sure those answers are not entirely satisfying, but that's how it goes some times...
Thank you for (re)publishing this troubling and thought provoking analysis of the story(ies) of the sex abuse ring scandal. It still holds up. So much so that by the time I reached the end I had forgotten that I was reading a more than six years old report. I have some comments and questions in response.
I'm an American, and I believe I first became aware of this story sometime in the last few years or so, as I've come to pay more attention to events in Britain and the Anglosphere in general and rely more on information sources from there. But it's possible I may have learned about it earlier than that. I understood the general outlines of the story, that the perpetrators were for the most part Pakistani men and the victims predominantly native British white working class girls who lived in predominantly working class towns and cities. None of the names of the particular towns where these gangs were organized had come to my attention, though.
I suppose what has most shocked me in the recent reports has been the information on the extent, the calculated nature, and the depth of depravity of the attacks on the girls. I had also, I think, been unaware of how long these gangs have been in operation as well as of the extent of the failure of the authorities to prosecute the responsible individuals and shut down these operations.
I am curious as to why you chose The New York Times as your test case media source to measure the degree of intensity of reporting on this story. While the NYT has an international scope it remains primarily focused on the U.S. Am I wrong in assuming that a comparable British national news source would likely have published more stories about this during the same time period?
I want to say more about this. But it's getting late. I hope to return tomorrow sometime to post another comment.
Thank you very much for your kind words.
As to why I used the NYT. There are of course two questions:
Why did I use the NYT back in 2018?
Why did I keep the NYT stats rather than changing them out for something in the UK when I revised the piece?
To take them in reverse order. The answer to the second question is that it didn't occur to me to add a change like that to the "minor edits" I intended to make, and if it had I probably would have been too lazy to do it.
As far as the first question I don't recall, but I imagine that I envisioned a US audience, and I was wondering why more of the people I associated with (and who were engaged in what passed for the culture war back then) had never heard of it. Also MH370 was an international story, so I probably felt like I was comparing apples to apples.
I'm sure those answers are not entirely satisfying, but that's how it goes some times...
But thanks again for reading and commenting!
That makes sense. And it's another reminder that you originally wrote this back in 2018.