opinion

Where has Duke "noose" story gone?

Where has the Duke University "noose" story gone?

In the middle of last week, the story of a yellow-rope noose found hanging from a tree in a commons area of the Durham, N.C., university's campus was roiling from coast to coast. And across the coast. It was an enormous story. And considering the how racial nerves continue to be frayed, post-Ferguson, the news interest was obvious.

In terms of coverage, the media at first let no one down. It was everywhere, including follow-up stories to the original reporting describing efforts to address the seemingly pervasive problem of campus racism. See: here, here, here, here and here. The story was depressing in its familiarity and coverage was everywhere, on every angle.

Until it wasn't any more. The noose was discovered about 2 a.m. Wednesday morning. By Thursday afternoon, the university had collected enough evidence about who did it that officials were able to announce that a student had been identified and had admitted to the act.

Citing confidentiality issues, the university refused to identify who the student was, other than to say the student was no longer on campus. Not everyone is buying that "confidentiality" line. But, notably, every major national news outlet that is no longer publishing "Duke noose" stories -- which includes, basically, every national news outlet -- seems to be accepting the university's rationale for silence.

The burst of news and commentary came to an end by Friday. Interest in the story has fallen off a cliff. A Nexis search of stories with the words Duke" and "noose" published between April 3 and today turns up little more than news briefs parenthetically mentioning what we already knew.

There are explanations, certainly. The weekend was filled up with religious holidays. And Duke students have more on their plates beside racial turmoil.

But none of those distractions are all that distracting for a media that had been utterly absorbed with the story literally hours earlier.

Now, it may be that one of the news organizations that have blanketed the Duke noose story is digging feverishly into a story about who the confessed perp is. They may be crossing the "ts" at this moment, laboring to get a sensitive story right while anxiously looking over their shoulders to see if their competitors have beaten them to the punch. That's the news business. The race to break a big story.

Only that doesn't seem to be happening. Since before the weekend, the churn of outraged commentary has flattened, pond-still. That doesn't happen with a story that news organizations are excited about telling before their competitors do. There are follow-ups. And follows to the follow-ups.

The identity of the person who hung a noose in the middle of the night on the Duke University campus is of obvious and undeniable interest. If it is, in fact, a White student -- especially one who may have left a trail of racism prior to hanging the noose -- then that conceivably would validate much of the concern raised about the Black experience on campuses like Duke.

But if the student who hung that noose had a different agenda -- and if the formerly Duke-obsessed national media has lost interest because they know who the student is -- then this noose-at-Duke story becomes rather more like this story.

From the day the noose was discovered, Duke administrators made it clear they were determined to track down the perpetrator, whose intent they knew to be creating racial strife on campus. Said vice president for student affairs Larry Moneta: "To whomever committed this hateful and stupid act, I just want to say that if your intent was to create fear, it will have the opposite effect."

Until the perpetrator is identified, all that fear remains. The administration, the news media -- both local and national -- all have a compelling interest in identifying who this person is. But they are showing no interest in doing so any more. Why?



