United headline a bad look

The subhead on the April 12 cover (“Airline will review politics after doctor with felony conviction had to give up seat”) is awful and evidence of implicit bias on the part of The Spokesman-Review.

Aside from the facts that a United Airlines passenger refused to leave the plane and was injured en route to being removed, various sides of the debate about who was at fault and the extent of the fault are trying to inject context that may or may not be relevant to the reporting of the news.

I’ve heard lots of folks who want to bring up the person’s race (suggesting a racial motivation for the force) and lots of folks who want to bring up his criminal history (somehow hoping to justify the force). The local reporter who first reported the story in Chicago said their staff decided neither was relevant to the fact that he had his head slammed into an armrest for not leaving a plane. His criminal record wasn’t even mentioned in the story.

The S-R instead chose not to say he was Asian, and chose to say he had a prior felony. In doing so, you have implicitly biased the story toward the perpetrator and not toward the victim. Not a good look.

Luke Baumgarten

Spokane