Fifteen [redacted] slain in Nigeria

Under the Czars, writers of an insurrectionary tendency became skilled at getting their meaning across to the well-informed, without using certain explicit expressions that might call the censors down on their heads.  This came to be known as the Delphic style.

In our own day, on these shores, the Politically-Correct press is sometimes just as Delphic -- though here, not for the purpose of sneaking ideas across -- quite the contrary:  it is to avoid mentioning the elephant in the room.

Herewith some examples of this craven style.

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This morning, both the print and the Web editions of the New York Times run an AP story which they headline thus:

At Least 15 Are Reported Killed in Nigeria

Gunmen suspected of belonging to a radical Islamist sect attacked a village in northeast Nigeria, tying up men, women and children before slitting their throats and killing at least 15.

The perpetrators are identified as Boko Haram.  But nowhere in the article do we learn what the victims had in common, nor whether religious sectarianism had anything to do with this;  in particular, the word “Christian” nowhere appears.  Yet in fact, as you can verify from less reticent sources, all the victims were indeed Christian, and were targeted as such.

The Washington Post runs virtually the same story, but supplies a slightly different headline:

Witnesses: At least 15 killed when suspected sect gunmen attack avillage in northeast Nigeria

Can you imagine the NYTimes or WaPo suppressing the group identity of victims of a hate crime, if the victims had all been women, or gays, or Jews, or newspaper editors?

Note:  There are a couple of small discrepancies between the two versions of the articles.  One has “launched attacks” where the other has “initiated attacks”.  And the WaPo version adds one paragraph at the very end, suppressed in the NYTimes redaction,  still not identifying the victims of the Musari attack, but mentioning a different attack:

And violence continued around the central Nigerian city of Jos, where ethnic, religious and political rivalries have caused mass killings in recent years. Authorities said at least seven had been killed in recent days around Christian villages in the rural plateau.

Here the journalists tiptoe closer to the facts, though still  strictly speaking  leaving unstated the ethnicity of those killed;  in principle, they could have been Hindu traveling-salesmen …

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French journalists are rather less squeamish.  Thus, Agence France-Presse:

Nigeria's Boko Haram accused of 'slaying 15 Christians'

By Aminu Abubakar (AFP)

The Nouvel-Observateur:

Nigeria: 15 chrétiens égorgés par des islamistes dans le Nord-Est

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[Update 3 January 2013]

The murder rate has been trending down in many U.S. cities, but Chicago is a sad exception to the trend.   An article in today’s New York Times alludes both to the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the problem, under the headline

In a Soaring Homicide Rate, a Divide in Chicago

What sort of divide they mean, is not immediately clear.   Are opinions divided as to how to address the problem -- more police, more gun control, curfews, perhaps?   No, the divide is, as reported, geographic;  but as every alert reader by now grasps without being told, it is also, let us say, sociological -- i.e. (inside voice) ethnic.   It was not until I read the readers’ comments -- always a useful corrective to the self-censorship of the press -- that I became aware what a remarkable juggling act their P.C. reporter had accomplished, writing an entire article about pachyderms, without once using the word “elephant”.   So to speak.