Who's Rioting In Paris? Who Knows?

Two young men are electrocuted in Paris as they try to hide in an electrical substation to escape from police.

Three nights of violent protest follow, then a silent parade to honor the two dead youths.

BBC reports the entire story -- 14 paragraphs of it -- and never mentions a word about the ethnicity or religion of the people involved. But there's a hint: the headwear of one man in one picture looks like a fez.

The Guardian's even more opaque, saying "French youths" rioted, which is true but misleading. It only mentions deep in the story that the neighborhoods in question are peopled by recent immigrants from North Africa, aka Muslims.

The Herald Sun's story doesn't say anything about the rioter's ethnicity or religion.

CNN says:

"There's a civil war underway in Clichy-Sous-Bois at the moment," Michel Thooris, an official of police trade union Action Police CFTC, said.

There is? Who's fighting whom? Bakers against candlestick makers? Mods against rockers? The croissant crowd against the baguette bunch? You'd never know by reading any of these stories.

Finally, in AP's story on the third night of rioting, we learn that the dead youths' names were Ziad and Banou. The story also mentions that Muslim community leaders are pleading for calm, as does an NYT story.

Three nights of rioting, with dozens of cars burned, dozens of arrests -- and every single one of these newspapers is afraid to say Muslims are rioting in Paris! Suppose Europeans were rioting in Riyadh. Do you think the newspapers would just report that residents were rioting?

This is not reporting. This is not passing along important news that people need. It is reportorial correctness that brings shame to what we used to be able to call the journalistic profession .. but no more.