THE PERSONAL and professional agendas I pursue in this book grew from a desire to right a wrong. In 1989, members of the media, as well as portions of the political establishment and elements of the criminal justice system in New York City, wrongfully accused a group of black and Latino male teens of sexually assaulting a white female who had been jogging in Central Park. She would become known simply as “the jogger.” Six teenage boys were charged with the crime. Five of them would eventually be convicted in two trials; the sixth would settle the charges against him...

I STOOD at my closet door that morning in April 1989 distractedly rummaging through my clothes. A local radio station provided the morning news roundup; this occupied another part of my mind. Some care had to go into the selection of my work outfit. I always strove for a pulled-together, businesslike—that is, conservative—look. White men made up the largest portion of theDaily News staff, followed by white women, then blacks and Latinos. Many of the white journalists I worked with tended to be more casual in their appearance. With my dark-chocolate complexion, I would have stood out...

MARLENE WAS NOT the first and will not be the last white woman to be reduced to tears and fears based on the alleged actions of black men. Her emotions were not simply related to issues of crime and violence. Those fears and tears are related somehow to the ways in which we socially construct the meaning of people’s race, class, and gender categories. On that first day when I heard the news of the attack on the jogger, I knew right off the bat that the story of a white female possibly raped by black males would resonate differently...

I BEGAN WORKING for the city desk about a year after I started at theDaily News.After my transfer there from the business desk, I did a tour of duty at major bureaus in the city. The purpose of this rotation, according to the editor in chief, was to familiarize me with the network of offices that fed the main section of the paper. For a month or so, I spent time at the police headquarters bureau—called “the Shack”—and at one of the court bureaus; I also worked general assignment on the day shift for the city...

I THOUGHT OF my time spent at the office during this period as just visits. I had a sense of freedom that was unusual for me in this job. As I spent days at a time working on my own without constant oversight, or should I say surveillance, from an editor, I started thinking, “So this is what it’s really like to be a reporter.” The ways in which I experienced the world underwent a transformation. I existed at once as a part of the everyday world and removed from it. I filtered the things I saw everywhere in terms...

BY THE TIME the story of the East Harlem kids being ejected from Central Park by the police had run, the jogger had been released from Metropolitan Hospital in Manhattan. Her departure had occurred two weeks earlier with a great deal of fanfare, all of which had been media generated (Byfield 1989d). My experiences at theDaily Newshad made me a more politicized journalist. I had not turned jaded or cynical; I had simply become more aware of how institutions, such as the media, shaped the world. I continued to follow developments about the jogger’s health, but I had...

AS IS OBVIOUS by now, I left journalism for other pastures. My desire to teach and write about what I had experienced in that field prompted me to return to graduate school. I chose sociology this time and plunged into my classes with gusto. I planned to study the media coverage of the Central Park jogger case. Eleven years had passed, and I had never really put it behind me.

Between my time at theDaily Newsand beginning graduate school, I taught journalism. In those classes, I talked about a lot of the stories I had worked on—the...

AS THE Central Park jogger story unfolded, policy makers, academics, and other researchers from across the city and the nation weighed in on the significance of the attack and offered explanations and potential remedies for violence in the streets. Their solutions often leaned in the direction of more punitive law enforcement methods, as opposed to increasing social programs, banning weapons, or instituting other preventative measures. Nearly a month after the jogger was raped, on May 15, 1989, President George H.W. Bush announced a $1.2 billion anticrime spending package. In his statement announcing the plan, the president mentioned the rape of...

BY DEFINITION, a racial project does “ideological ‘work’” that creates or changes the nature of racial “dynamics” (Omi and Winant 1994: 56). The case of the Central Park jogger definitely changed forever the lives of the five teens put on trial. Prior to this case, none had ever been arrested. The Central Park Five, as they came to be known, were tried as adults under New York State law. Based on statute, four of the five received juvenile sentences. Those sentenced as juveniles served the early years of their sentences at a juvenile facility and were moved to adult prisons...