First Journal entry for Proseminar

The first article that caught my attention today was this story from the Orlando Sentinel about accusations of racial profiling at Disney World.

Four black teenagers were “banned for life” after allegedly loitering and refusing to obey Disney security and Orange Country police officers. All four are top football players, recruits for Florida State, who say they were just having fun before security clamped down and singled them out in a highly questionable manner.

The most startling fact, in my opinion, was that 45 of 46 Disney customers so banned in the past two weeks were black or Hispanic. Authorities say the crackdown was necessary to discourage ganglike activity in Downtown Disney (can’t make this stuff up), while the athletes say they were profiled, essentially, for being young, tall and black.

I like that the writer clearly did some excellent research to find these figures, but didn’t overplay the statistic, which speaks for itself. The Sentinel journalists behind the piece, Henry Pierson Curtis and Scott Powers, give you the facts without drawing the conclusions for you. Authorities and the teenagers are each given a say, but it’s hard not to come down on the side of the latter when that 45 of 46 number is dropped.

Yet, unlike the New York Post or some similar tabloid, the writers work this figure into the story rather than singling it out as the “look here” bombshell. They know the figure is so stark, they don’t have to. To me it’s a great example of even-handed, understated journalism.