Jumping to conclusions
By now, most of us are familiar with the case of 20-year-old Malaysian student Asyraf Haziq, whose mugging in East London went viral on YouTube. Here it is, in case you missed it:
News reports have all said something along the lines of:
The student was held up at knifepoint and punched. Several people were seen helping him to his feet and looked like they were comforting him but then they rifled through the contents of his backpack and stole items. He underwent a three-hour operation on Wednesday.
One helped Asyraf to his feet and appeared to comfort him. But then another lout began going through his bag.
A short while later, footage showed Mr Haziq sitting on the floor bleeding when he was approached by a group of youths.
They were seen seeming to help him before rifling through his rucksack, stealing his wallet and mobile phone.
Man laying in the street after being assaulted then falsely helped up and robbed by sick humans.
My initial thought after watching the video was that the chap who helped Asyraf to his feet was genuinely trying to help him. It was another young man who opened Asyraf's bag. My gut feeling is that in that situation there is really no way the first chap could have protested or tried to stop the robbery, and so he joined in. If he had tried to prevent the incident he would have been confronted.
But that isn't how the media has framed the incident. It happened very quickly and this probably isn't a point worth dwelling on, but I feel that it's an example of media prejudice when reporting on the riots.
