Pat,

Often, when it comes to criminal cases that do or do not hit the mass media at a flash point, you have to go back and examine each case on a case by case basis.

For every case that gets tons of attention, anyone in this field for a lengthy time can point to a case that actually garnered less attention than others received and are very surprised by it. And often times brutality may or may not have had anything to do with it. (For example, where I am at initially gang shootings bring out more tv cameras and media than child abuse murder cases.)

But take the case that the right wingers are pushing right now and are claiming because the suspects are black and the victim's white, that the mainstream media isn't covering it for a variety of reasons. I'm not familiar with every single fact in the case, but if I recall, the case was not solved over night and pieces of the case were put together over time (correct me if I'm wrong). Unfortunately, on top of that, rape-murder cases are not that uncommon in the US. Yes, this one was very brutal but I believe if you go back and examine how this case unfolded, then it might reveal why it did not receive coverage like so many conservatives thought it should (and I can probably guarantee race had nothing to do with the coverage.)

Also, the brutality of a case does not instantly mean a criminal act will be covered anymore. To illustrate, here in Illinois, over the past fifteen or twenty years we have had at least three murders where a baby was cut from the womb of a pregnant woman. The latest one was a year or so ago and did not receive nearly the coverage of the earliest one.

We have also grown numb to all of this somewhat too. Go pick up a copy of the USAToday and follow the state by state bylines. Human carnage is amazing in the US. Or do a simple google search.

As for the Duke case, there are other things at work in that case that make it an almost invalid example to use. For example, the prosecutor's misconduct for one. Not only that, it was an unusual case from the start and had all the required parts of the media spotlight.

Lastly, like many others, you are using a very broad definition of a "hate crime" that is not the intent of the statutes.