A terrible crime has been perpetrated in Michigan, and the comment thread is outraged. A family of swans was run over.
Meanwhile, a Michigan woman killed her disabled son (he had cerebral palsy), and the comment thread opened with, "this is wong, but understandable" and "she must have cracked under the strain." It improved thanks to being shared on Twitter and various other folks entering the thread, but the initial take is telling.
The journalism here (a topic I'm studying for a White Paper) is fine. Reporting is neutral. But the comments become a locus for revealing the ways that disabled lives are so easily devalued.
