Infuriataing News Coverage of Abduction

I thought it was a bit odd, too. Especially considering they were both minors. But given the climate of our corporate media, it really isn't so surprising. Decisions based on judgment went out long ago, and editors who ever knew a thing about journalistic ethics have long been replaced by corporate stooges intent on profits.

 

I'm confused, are you trying to say that the news is not entertainment?

 

CrewDust,
Are you sarcastically referring to the current state of "news," or are you suggesting that the news has always been (and should be) thus?

If the latter, this is clearly wrong. The news is the only industry in America specfically protected by the Constitution. The early proponents of democracy understood pretty clearly that government by the people necessitates an "informed" public, which is why they took to calling the press, the "4th Estate of Democracy." Our mainstream press has now pretty much given up this responsibility entirely. In fact, it might be time to go ahead and rewrite that part of the Constitution: Why talk about a "free press" if we don't really believe in it? And clearly, the leaders who pushed the Telecom Act of '96 through Congress do NOT believe in a free press.

 

The bigger picture: national news organization should not even be reporting about abductions, rapes, murders, etc.

99% of the time, they're not newsworthy from a national perspective. All these stories provide is a cheap, exploitive form of voyeurism for the viewer.

Meanwhile, the real news goes unreported.

 

Sarcasm yes, why weren't they reporting about abductions last year, wait that's right, last year it was shark attacks. I believe that the media is more concered about making money than reporting the news. It's not who gets the story right, it's who gets it first.

 

People assume that the purpose of the news industry is to inform the public. Really, the purpose of the news industry is to make money. If you watch TV newscasts about child abductions and rape victims, and buy newspapers with child abduction stories on the front page, the industry will continue to report on them.

Don't like it? Read the Christian Science Monitor and The Economist, and watch the Jim Lehrer News Hour.

 

Or listen to National Public Radio News. Thank gawd for public broadcasting.

 

What he said.

 

Here's the most straightforward explanation of the state of the news media in this country from a thread on the Smart case.

Also remember that the mainstream media is owned almost entirely by large multinational corporations who have a significant voice in policy making and whose profits would not necessarily benefit from an informed public.

 

Obie, this is just flat out historically wrong. If the news industry was supposed to be just another capitalist enterprise, as you suggest, then we never would have granted it "protected" status in the Constitution. You are growing up in an era in which corporations have usurped this, but don't be misled into thinking it is normal.

 

I am not sure what I think about publishling rape victims names. At one point I thought it was to protect the innocent, but I'm not sure that that doesn't convey the wrong message. The message being that a person is worth less after being raped. Perhaps it is to protect the women from negative publicity. But there is still alot of shame surrounding rape which is wrong.

Many rapes in say Asia (I only know this as one of my colleagues is preparing to travel through Taiwan and Hong Kong) go unreported due to the amount of shame involved in reporting it.

I don't know how I would feel it it happened to me.

What I find outrageous in this case is though that this idiot was out on bail. He raped his stepdaughter for crying out loud and had a history of sexual assaults. Its about time that sexual offenders got the book well and truly throw at them. This man should not have been out on the streets.

 

This was a story in progress. Their names were published while they were kidnap victims, with the police and citizens on the lookout for them. After the kidnapper was caught and killed, and the girls examined, was it learned that they were rape victims. This was a kidnap story that turned into a rape story, not a rape story from the get-go where the names would've been withheld due to their ages.

 

Ian has it correct. A stroy in progress, which included the highly regarded, innovative and untested "amber alert" system.

Today, I watched MSNBC fumble their way through these choppy waters as they said they wouldn't name the girls anymore and not show their picture as they showed their picture!

The anchor, the Cuban guy Richard (Ricardo) Sanchez, was saying that it wouldn't matter much...after all...we Americans have a short attention span anyway.

The problem is that you have to be first, with exclusive information and many times the story is incorrect, misleading or at worst, it blows up in your face.

Gringo is also correct. Most of this is regional at best. A man in a 20 year old Ford couldn't make it out to Ohio in under 5 hours, so why did we in Ohio have to watch the live coverage ALL day long?

We have FOX news showing us car chases in LA when we all know of the time when the dude killed himself on LIVE TV, after a car chase!

Speaking of Ohio, Rick Case the helicopter guy, who's real name is also Ricardo, Rick Casagrande, not Case, was telling WCMH, local NBC station in Columbus that the Ohio guy was Killed when he was not dead. I could go on, but that makes it interesting. As things evolve, as the story develops, we get to watch. There is a rubber-necker in all of us.

The worst of all this kidnapping / rape case in California was watching the families give their press conference. They all said their kids were safe AND UNHARMED. They too allowed their kids to be hurt. A few people were yelling in celebration, "Yea man, this is your 15 minutes of fame!"

Totally sick. Yea, I am famous because my daughter was kidnapped and later I learned she was raped...but hey, I'm famous!

And I did see the woman who said that keeping raped names quiet was reinforcing the idea of rape bringing shame. Yea, but let's allow them to decide, not the media.

All in all, today the Gov of Cali is acting like a hero while the media is covering their tracks. I can't wait until he uses this in his reelection bid.

 

http://www.thenewrepublic.com/doc.mhtml?i=life&s=cottle073102

 

Godot,
That New Republic piece is right on.
I'm reminded of a comment I heard on ESPN Radio a few weeks back that absolutely blew me away. It was on "Mike and Mike in the AM." They were doing an "all Iverson all the time" deal on that weekend when Iverson was about to be arrested. And the little geeky Mike said something like,

"I don't want you all to think we REALLY WANT to be focusing so much on this story. I know this is a case of the media overhyping a trivial story instead of dealing with real news. But let's face it, if we stopped covering it, pretty soon fingers would be reaching for the dials, and someone else would be covering it."

Now granted, ESPN admits in its very moniker that it is an "entertainment" network first, not a "news" source, so we may cut Mike some slack here. But I was just amazed at how he could distill EVERYTHING that is wrong with our corporate media into this tiny mea culpa. And I'm assuming he went to college for broadcast journalism (he's no athlete-turned-talking head)--I just wonder what his "Journalistic Ethics" professor is thinking when hearing this jerk and his hypocrisy.

 

I didn't follow this story at all either in print or TV because I felt is was not a newsworthy event. This is something that tragically happens in America all too often, and as a father of two kids 11 and 9 I feel for the parents. That said this story had no place occupying the national news as it did. The responsible parties should be fired. Regardless of whether it was a slow news month or not, and I don't think it was given the happenings in the Middle East, there has to be accountability on the part of these organizations to be responsible. Clearly though they are answering a need on the part of the public, exhibit "A", the mining accident story. Maybe we as citizens should not be swayed to watch the train wreck, but be more mindful of the important stuff that really does impact our lives.

Regarding the reporting on the age of the girls, as Ian and garcia mentioned in their posts, the girls ages were first reported as a means to obtain a lead or a tip as to their whereabouts. That the news media handled it so poorly after the fact does not surprise me. They are insensitive, and self centered. If you have ever had the misfortune of being involved in a newsworthy event or had the bad luck of getting calls from the press you quickly realize they are many times looking at it from a bias perspective or from a preconceived notion. They also will not stop at nothing to get to the story even if it means ruining a number of lives in the process. I have little respect for the press based on several personal experiences. They are sloppy with their reporting, don't take the time or make the effort to find the truth. For them it's much easier to present things in black and white-good versus bad than take the time to report things in detail and come to the understanding that many shades of grey are at the heart of the news. I also dispise how they will attempt to manipulate your words for their own end. Taking comments out of context or making your statements appear to be absolute. I'm sure there are a lot of good journalists out there, but my experience has shown me that they need a code of conduct, and they have no accountability or moral code. The only recourse we have is to threaten or take legal action for slander for inaccuracies in reporting. There was a very good film with Paul Newman and Sally Field about this it's called Absence of Malice.

Everyone in the above case is a loser. The parents and the girls were exploited by the media for ratings and that is a tragedy. I thought a lot about the issue raised by Lomab8, the stigma associated with rape and if reporting peoples names would take the shame out of it. Since the girls are minors they need to have their privacy respected. I agree there should be no social stigma attached to being raped, but these are young girls and they need time to heal and to deal with being children without further publicity. Think about it, would you want your name or your daughters names published or reported in the press if you or they were robbed at gunpoint or beaten up. We should protect the privacy of the victim. It will allow them to deal with the trauma and to get on with their lives with the least interruption possible. That goes for minors and adults.

 

Yeah, I thought about it a bunch last night. It should really be up to the victim on whether their name is published and when. Its too bad the press gave the fact that they were raped and took away their choice.

I do think that deadly force in this case did not need to be justified by giving those details. If you kidnap people at gunpoint and happen to get your ass killed well that was your perogative.

 

Since this is a media thread and we have questioned the media's education and judgement, I think back to college.

We too, in the aviation department, were thinking of our friends just accross the 17th Ave. Simple things like reporting on a some Airbus going down in , let's say China, and showing file footage of some triple 7, while the voice-over speculates over the accident is not the end of the world, but it is their job to get the minor details correct.

We created a class called Aviation Communication, yes quite simple. It included various areas of communication, from interpersonal skills, flight deck interaction, but most interesting, it taught us how to deal with the media.

Yes, one day we might be called by a producer we know at the local NBC affiliate and we need to represent our industry. Today, we have so many so-called experts and the news personalities are long on the people skills and short on the brains. When they don't have a teleprompter to read from, well, it is an adventure at best.

We can attack this from various angles, but in the long run, all we can do is represent our own industry and take the media to task, otherwise we have allowed the myths to be spread.

And, while I am at it, (and I really do feel their pain) just because your kids was killed a while back and you have worked (and some have) to "save all children", I am sorry, but that does not make you some expert. And, to have one father calling out the parents of another case simply because the parents don't want his help, it is sad. Even more sad considering the media is giving this clown airtime.

 

Dude, what in the Hell are you rambling about? I've read your post three times and it still makes zero sense. Actually, it made the most sense the first time I read it. Anybody care to translate Garcia's post since I don't dare ask him to re-phrase it? Dude sounds like he got back from a late night at the bar, was eating White Castle to recuperate, and just started typing whatever warped thoughts entered his head.

 

cheers!
It just shows the fact that the media can't always be trusted to get it right.

Bartender, I'll have another.