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I wonder why there's no photo of the student with any of the stories? Eve Carson's photos were all over the news in the days following her murder.

Even though there are legitimate news value reasons why her murder generated more coverage, it treads close to the charge that is made that the media tends to focus on young white female victims over other victims.

Interesting (and tragic) ethical question, John.

Have you ever stopped to think that it was the news coverage that caused the Carson case to move so swiftly?
When I heard about Miss Carson's death I cried. When I learned of Mr. Hodge's death I cried. In both instances a young life was lost through violence, and in my eyes neither was less valuable than the other.
But the media seems to ALWAYS value certain victims over others. Had Miss Carson had a blank resume, it is more likely than not that her death in the eyes of the media would be more worthy of coverage. It is a disgusting practice that the media continuously conducts when victims are not either famous, wealthy or White.
And that is a horrible thing that plays out year after year.

Have you ever stopped to think that it was the news coverage that caused the Carson case to move so swiftly?
When I heard about Miss Carson's death I cried. When I learned of Mr. Hodge's death I cried. In both instances a young life was lost through violence, and in my eyes neither was less valuable than the other.
But the media seems to ALWAYS value certain victims over others. Had Miss Carson had a blank resume, it is more likely than not that her death in the eyes of the media would be more worthy of coverage. It is a disgusting practice that the media continuously conducts when victims are not either famous, wealthy or White.
And that is a horrible thing that plays out year after year.

I'm really torn on this issue. I understand all the arguments for why Eve's murder was covered the way it was. But I also remember, when the story about Abijhit Mahato, the murdered Duke student, came out, feeling there was more to the story that was going unreported. I have to wonder if police resources aren't allocated based on public/media attention. Maybe if all murders were treated as high profile by the media and the police, then those who committed those crimes wouldn't be left on the streets to eventually hurt someone who actually is high profile. If there is a correlation between police resources and media attention, then doesn't the media have an obligation to the public to give the murder of a student, any student, enough attention to get the case solved?

The issue is more acute in cities where murder is extremely commonplace. A reporter at the L.A. Times was so moved by the number of murders that go totally unreported that she runs a blog devoted to reporting on every single murder and the victims left behind in the entire county. Here it is: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/homicidereport/

Bryan, we tried to get a photo from his family last night to run with today's story, but were unsuccessful. We hope to have one with future updates.

The two previous commenters make a good point about media coverage putting pressure on police. If "That's not how Greensboro police do things," maybe the media plays a role in that. I believe they do.

There also clearly exists a tendency to give greater press coverage to violent crimes that are unusual. (Regan Bailey, comes to mind). But the flip side to that is a requisite acceptance of other violent crimes as being not-so-unusual, it is here that we see a race/geography separation of the degree of press coverage.

Roch,

I am optimistic about how big of a role the media has in how police do things in Greensboro. I have covered Greensboro police since September and have found them extremely difficult to get information out of at times, though that's usually the case regarding every day routine stuff.

Major crimes, for the most part, they are as open as they can be. I trust that our source with the department has been as open about this case as possible. Ongoing criminal investigations are difficult for police to talk about, because simply there are things they can't release in order not to damage the investigation.

It usually depends on the sources within the department. Some are very open, while others tend to shy away when reporters call.

It's been a daily mission to improve relations between the paper and the police department regarding issues of interest to citizens of Greensboro. We are making progress, but aren't quite were we would like to be yet.

If I interpret the argument correctly, newspapers should put every murder on the front page -- if it bleeds it leads -- so that police will be quicker to respond to the public pressure. That's an interesting idea. I'm not sure I buy the power vacuum between the front page of the first second vs. the front page of the second. Our readership numbers indicate that virtually everyone who read the A1 also read B1. But it is interesting to ponder.

The difference in how local police agencies deal with the public on these cases is also interesting to me. As you know, Roch, Greensboro police aren't forthcoming and seem to view the news media as an enemy on cases like this. Your experience having to sue the city to get information related to investigations suggests it isn't just "the media."

Other police agencies seem to view the public as partners in the pursuit of information in investigations. That also seems to work out pretty well.

The Regan Bailey case is an interesting one, too. It was high profile with front page presence. (The case remains unsolved.) Police weren't been particularly forthcoming. The police did seem to respond in force, but I would suggest that was more because of the neighborhood's response than the media attention.

I'm the editor who raised the question with JR, and I had this discussion with several copy editors last night who felt we should be playing them the same. We should be giving local murders like that the same amount of attention we gave Eve Carson. Maybe this kid wasn't as high-profile, but it was a kid at a local college where we haven't seen any likely motive in his death yet.

I do think the media spurred the police in the Carson case -- we probably wouldn't have gotten so many press conferences if the media hadn't been clamoring for news and updates so much. Perhaps if we made this one a bigger deal, the police would feel the pressure to cooperate. Or perhaps I am living in an idealized world. We've had seven murders in Greensboro this year -- it seems like that's not too many to give each more coverage.

As for the photo question, I think that's what bugged some of us more than anything. Looking at the Web site, it seems like we knew it was a homicide at least by noon on Tuesday -- but it sounds like from what Ryan said that we started looking for the photo only last night? I hope I am wrong about that.

John, the most important stories don't go on A-1?

Generally speaking, Roch, yes. But "most important" means different things to different people. We consider other factors, too, including timeliness, the overall mix of stories, interest level, and what is local.

I think, too, Mel, that the power of the national attention -- the networks and the cable talkfests -- helped get the attention of local law enforcement. Whether it spurred them to release information is arguable, but I doubt it was coverage of the Chapel Hill Newspaper and the N&O alone that did it.

I could be wrong, of course.

There are pictures of this man all over the place, and the student responsible for his memorial photo used on the university site is a graphic design student at A&T. Dozens of kids from Wendell (and current A&T students) who grew up with Hodge were at the memorial, and had access to photos. Photos were absolutely possible to find and publish by news time.

Interesting discussion JR - one I was having with the late Hodges' friends at A&T just yesterday. The reasons for the disparity in coverage are many; not the least of which is our society's dead blonde addiction. The police department's involvement cannot be understated. At Chapel Hill, the cops working the Eve Carson case were curt, but helpful. In Greensboro, the police department is more than happy to return our calls, seven hours after later and ten minutes before air time. Funny how that works.

As for no photos available? PFFT. I spent yesterday afternoon swimming in Hodge photos, both on-line and off. Amazing what you can get when you actually roll up on scene...

Interesting discussion JR - one I was having with the late Hodges' friends at A&T just yesterday. The reasons for the disparity in coverage are many; not the least of which is our society's dead blonde addiction. The police department's involvement cannot be understated. At Chapel Hill, the cops working the Eve Carson case were curt, but helpful. In Greensboro, the police department is more than happy to return our calls, seven hours after later and ten minutes before air time. Funny how that works.

As for no photos available? PFFT. I spent yesterday afternoon swimming in Hodge photos, both on-line and off. Amazing what you can get when you actually roll up on scene..

I'm a believer that every murder in a place like Greensboro -- where it is relatively uncommon -- deserves significant coverage. The more people are aware of violence in their community the more they are likely to take action to solve it.

And to me, there is no doubt that the murder of a local college student belongs on A1. It's rare. And while all murders are tragic, it is particularly sad to see the death of a young person who is trying to better themselves.

I thought Eve Carson's murder was overly played. But there is a result from that. Intense media scrutiny of the two suspects in that case started an effort to reform our state's broken probation system.

Who knows if that reform effort will be successful, but I have little doubt it wouldn't have been undertaken if her death were given the same level of coverage that was given to Abhijit Mahato's here in the Triangle.

I also didn't get the sense that the Chapel Hill PD was being responsive solely because of the media attention. Maybe they were, I don't know. When I was an undergraduate at UNC and writing crime stories for class, I found the Chapel Hill PD to be very responsive on many issues.

In the Carson case, they did a good job of staying ahead of the information that was coming out in dribs and drabs in the press, by being responsive. They also clearly needed the help of the media in getting those pictures out. But the CHPD recognized from the get-go that this was going to be a big story and the best way to manage the message was to stay out front. They called a press conference the morning they identified Eve Carson's body, gave the media time to assemble, and had all the necessary people on hand to answer questions. Pulled similar maneuvers throughout the days that followed when important new information came to light.

I have a feeling that if a similarly high profile murder happened in Greensboro -- the police would send out a short press release and then play the game of seeing which reporters can actually catch up with the relevant person in the police department to try and pull a few more bits of information out. Some in the GPD are very good about getting back to reporters. Others not so much.

This is a bit meta, but I think it's really cool to see so much internal discussion occurring in this thread, between the writer, the editor and the other editor and even other local media types. Very substantive and healthy for journalism, IMHO.

People always diss comments, but I think this is an instance where the comments serve their purpose. Nobody is going wacko over silly stuff, and a good discussion is taking place.

BTW, thanks for the info about the photos, Ryan. I figured someone was trying to get them, but was interested in the back story.

Here's something else to consider in this particular case: Best I can tell, the fact that Mr. Hodge was an A&T student wasn't widely known until Tuesday.

I'm the N&R's online news reporter, which means (among other things) I troll the 'net and the wires, listen to the scanner and pull releases from the fax and e-mail so I can churn out stories for online. I saw a brief about Mr. Hodge in Sunday's paper. At that point it was a suspicious death, which in cop-speak means it might or might not be a homicide. (The last suspicious death that the police investigated, iirc, turned out to be a suicide.) There wasn't anything more about Mr. Hodge in Monday's paper.

On Monday, sometime after I left for the day, GPD ruled (or, rather, made public the fact) that Hodge's death was a homicide. We had a brief in Tuesday's paper.

Tuesday morning, as I'm looking through my Google Reader feeds, I saw a headline from the News & Observer, "Wendell man killed in Greensboro." That's odd, I thought. I don't remember seeing anything about that. So I click open the story, and it's a brief that says Hodge is from Wendell and is a student at A&T. I reworked the brief we had in the paper to add his hometown and school affiliation. I called A&T for confirmation. (This was before 8 a.m., and I heard back from A&T's spokeswoman at about noon.) I checked A&T's online student directory, which had a listing for a Derek Hodge that showed only an e-mail addy but not a hometown or local address. That wasn't confirmation, but it made me think the N&O had good information.

Then I went back and checked the two releases we got from Greensboro police. Neither mentioned Mr. Hodge's Wendell or A&T connections. I updated the story sometime after noon Tuesday with Mr. Hodge's class year, his undeclared major and the memorial service on Wednesday.

It's possible that one of the local TV stations had reported Mr. Hodge's A&T affiliation before Tuesday morning. If one of them did, I missed it. I have no idea how the N&O was able to get that information. Mr. Hodge's Legacy.com obit as of Tuesday morning noted only that he was from Wendell but not that he attended A&T.

I offer that as a contrast to the Carson case, where the whole world knew her life story by lunchtime of the day she was killed. In Mr. Hodge's case, only his immediate friends and family knew about his A&T ties until roughly 80 hours after his death.

Being that I am a graduate from NC A&T, a current graduate student at UNC, as well as a resident of Wendell and a friend of the slain victim; with all of the previous postings I would like to know where were you all today?

Maybe I was "lost in the mix" at the funeral service, but I do not remember seeing ANYONE covering this story.

While you all were going back and forth with these postings, how difficult would it have been to send someone to cover this story?

Just a question.

The Eve Carson coverage certainly did not receive too much coverage unless one believes the public should not have been given all the information it demonstrably wanted.

I agree that every murder should receive thorough news coverage, but I don't think news coverage always determines community response. Did Greensboro react the same way to Derek Hodge's murder as Chapel Hill did to Eve Carson's? Was the response at A&T the same as at Carolina, where the mourning was massive and immediate, very visibly led by Chancellor James Moeser? Was there the same outpouring of emotion from alumni?

In a city where 30 or more homicides occur each year, as opposed to typically one or two in Chapel Hill, I suppose insensitivity is understandable. But it also invites complacency. This community shouldn't accept or tolerate 30 homicides every year without demanding better of ourselves.

The irony is we're discussing whether the murder of Derek Hodge should have been given as much attention as the murder of Eve Carson. What about most of the dozens of others each year that are noted even less? We seem perpetually stuck on five murders in 1979 while forgetting hundreds upon hundreds since.

Actually John, the news cycle with Eve Carson was initially slow as well.

Her unidentified body was found early the morning of March 5. Police didn't announce her identify until the next day around noon. So maybe not 80 hours, but at least 30 or so.

I'm currently a student at A & T and recently in one of my classes we had a discussion about this same issue. Funny we discussed how the Eve Carson case was so drastically shown worldwide and if one of our students were killed even if the president of our university would our student receive the same kind of publicity as the Eve Carson case. I did not know Mr. Hodge personally but from what I have seen he was a well known and respectable person around campus and in the Wendell area so him not being president of our university does that make him any different than any other and if information about a person is really wanted it can be found and we call that extensive research. I believe all these comments from the editors and such are excuses the GPD is not necessarily fully needed in order for one to cover a story. How hard is it to say NC A & T STUDENT FOUND SLAIN? How hard is it to say NC A & T STUDENT WELL KNOWN AND LIKED AMONG MANY? Information as such is not needed from the GPD and even if information about this student was discovered 80 hours after his death still why has his picture been flashed on the media for 2 seconds but everytime I turned on my television or viewed local newspapers Ms. Carson was everywhere to be found. I really feel its sad that we live in a world that when something like this happens we have a million excuses to cover our behinds when in the end yes you're wrong for not showing OUR slain student the same respect as the president of UNC. I will end this by saying RIP to both (Mr. Derek Hodge and Ms. Eve Carson)

What elephant??

People, lets just face it. The media does NOT care about what happens to you unless youre the correct age, gender, RACE and social class.

Its the Medias job to enforce our stereotypes NOT challenge them.

White women at Chapel Hill don't get murdered.

Black men get murdered everyday. No one wants to hear that he was a student or how well he was liked...Are you serious??That would go ruin our society's precious stereotypes. Believe me, we would rather believe that this event was a result of typical black on black crime.

Oh, I almost forgot the exception. If his murderer were white, you would probably be sick of seeing it right now.

Its all about Lacy Peterson, Elizabeth Smart and Natalee Holloway. No one care about Megan Williams, and whats her face...

Face it. If the N&O had splashed this story on the frontpage, you would be bitchin' about them singling out only bad news about A&T.

Bryan, it is certainly more evidence that journalists don't think in lock-step or agree with everything their editors think.

I agree with ucanthandlethetruth; we all know that the media does nothing to combat the negative stereotypes in any culture because if they did, they wouldn't have a story.

But I totally disagree with ucanthandleiteither. This guy was a fellow student; his death has nothing to do with A&T in any respect other than he was a student. A lot of people were hurt by the fact that he wasn't getting any type of coverage for days.

The media doesn't care about what's going on with minorities in any aspect other than corruption or violence. The A&T debacle is for another blog.

Actually ucanthandleiteither, I'm more of the CNN/news blog type. You've clearly let media distort your view of A&T. I know more engineers and teachers who've graduated from A&T than I've heard of bad events regarding the university.

I'm not sure that I view this incident as "bad press" for the A&T. This occurred during the weekend in this guys home.

My university has bigger problems...
As a student at a university totally oppposite of A&T, I should be more concerned about some loner coming into my CLASSROOM with a shotgun to blow me away....

Funny, I doubt you saw incidents involving campus mass murders as "bad press" for the unexpecting universities.

You must be an N&O or Charlotte O subsciber. I seriously suggest that you supplement your daily doses of BS with other skewed outlets (create a balance you know??)....considering the N&O was shaped by a white supremacist and The Charlotte O sometimes resembles Fox news on paper.