and also covered by newspapers in Oklahoma and Tennessee," yet almost no national press. The Associated Press ran the story on its local wires but not nationally until a month later when the story was focused on the lack of coverage rather than the crime itself. A LexisNexis search revealed only a few dozen articles that appeared only after The Washington Times story on the lack of coverage on October 22, 1999, a month after Dirkhising's death. Accusations of liberal media bias On October 22, 1999, approximately one month after his death, The Washington Times ran a story with the headline "Media tune out torture death of Arkansas boy." The story contrasted the lack of coverage of the Dirkhising case with the treatment the murder of Matthew Shepard received. The story quoted Tim Graham, director of media studies at Media Research Center, a Conservative media watchdog group that frequently criticizes liberal bias, as saying, "Nobody wants to say anything negative about homosexuals. Nobody wants to be seen on the wrong side of that issue." Brent Bozell, media critic and director of the Media Research Center, accused the media of deliberately spiking the story. Bozell wrote, "Had he been openly gay and his attackers heterosexual, the crime would have led all the networks. But no liberal media outlet has as its villains two gay men." After The Washington Times article, the lack of coverage of Dirkhising's case was noted by conservative commentators and was attributed to the homosexuality of the perpetrators as well as the nature of the crimes. Conservative political commentator Pat Buchanan noted that showing gay men as sadistic barbarians does not fit the "villain-victim script of our cultural elite." The Dirkhising case was repeatedly compared with the media coverage of the murder of Matthew Shepard although Dirkhising was a minor in a sex crime and Shepard's murder was a hate crime involving adults. Also the sexualities of the victims and attackers differed somewhat with Shepard being an openly gay man attacked by two heterosexual men, while Dirkhising's attackers were lovers and presumed to be gay. Jonathan Gregg wrote in Time, "Matthew Shepard died not because of an all-too-common sex crime, but because of prejudice. Essentially, Shepard was lynched; taken from a bar, beaten and left to die because he was the vilified "other" whom society has often cast as an acceptable target of abuse; Dirkhising was just "another"