Whenever a Journalist is working on a story, it is too easy to misconstrue information and make facts and statistics emphasize the point that you are trying to make. People are led to believe that when a crime happens in their neighborhood, it happens in the same way everywhere else too. Statistics seem to be very powerful; people pay attention to a story when statistics are thrown in as a climax to the story.
In the book that I read here a while back, “The Culture of Fear”, an army specialist survived a stint in Iraq and then came home before getting shot in front of his house. His wife warned him about moving in the middle of the day, but he thought that just because of his military history that he would be spared. He seemed to take on the tough guy attitude and that he could ward off all evil in his neighborhood. Journalists made this out to be the ideal example of what America is like. It’s not like this everywhere, especially not where I grew up. I grew up in the small town of Agra, Oklahoma, with a population little more than 350 people. Nobody went driving around with guns showing what big shots they were, granted a lot of people had guns but they were primarily used for hunting or maybe for protection but we didn’t have to worry about someone breaking in and murdering everyone and stealing whatever they could get their hands on. This was a small town where everybody knew everybody and people would occasionally gather at the local mini-mart and talk about the local gossip.
In “False Pretenses”, an article written by Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith, Jan 23, 2008 on the website, The Center for Public Integrity, it is stated that after the September 11 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, President George Bush along with some of his top advisors and Vice President Dick Cheney, made false claims about the national security caused by Sadam Husein’s Iraq. This caused people to get worried that America was in more danger than it really was and thus waged a war based on these false premises. The United Nations did a thorough sweep of Iraq and didn’t find any evidence of the supposed “weapons of mass destruction”. It is now the conclusion of government investigations and the senate Select Committee on Intelligence that there were no weapons of mass destruction and that Sadam Husein had destroyed all of the proposed weapons and had no intention of reviving his nuclear program. If the government officials can’t keep from stretching the truth or giving false information, especially about national security then how are we going to keep journalists from coming up with information that makes a theft gone awry seem like world war III.
According to newsOk.com archives, 44 year old Patrick Sherrill was a disgruntled Postal worker who was, according to workplaceviolence911.com, trying to get a transfer to another post office and his supervisor was having trouble getting the paperwork to go through. NewsOk.com says that on the morning of August 20, 1986 Patrick walked into the Post Office wearing his normal blue uniform and carrying his bag only his bag contained his two .45 caliber pistols and started shooting his supervisor, point blank in the chest and walked around the post office and shot 13 other employees of the post office. Patrick was a national guardsman an a marksman for the national guards. This was a horrific tragedy but, this tragedy helped to coin a new term called “going postal”. It’s not an accurate analogy to use this term because; just because someone is upset or angry doesn’t mean that he/she works in a post office. The airing of this massacre created hysteria in that people had to watch out for disgruntled workers. Before this happened we didn’t hear too much of any disgruntled workers going on a rampage and killing people, since then several accounts have been made of people getting angry at work and going on a killing spree before committing suicide. According to workplaceviolence911.com, as of 1986 the population of Edmond was just under 35,000 and as of 2007 it was well over 65,000. It doesn’t seem as though the story of the Edmond Post Office held back any chances of prosperity.
Boston.com/Globe, Sacha Pfeiffer and Globe Staff, reported that in January 2002 three different cases of Priests being accused of child molestation. Out of the three priests; Ronald Bourgault, Michael Foster, and Edward Mcdonagh two of them were reinstated due to false identification and the other one was reinstated because the allegation of molestation was 30 years old and there wasn’t enough evidence. This was a case of mistaken identity and also a case where someone may have been upset at the reverend or maybe they just didn’t like the guy but in any case, it seems as though that these people get caught up in the media reports and someone decides that maybe if they report someone as a molester they might get their picture in the papers or maybe, if they’re fortunate on television as a person who was victimized. But, in any case it seems that people get caught up in the drama and popularity of the “crime of the times” and use it to gain popularity or to get back at someone they really don’t care for or don’t like, and innocent people getting their lives shattered and torn apart. There is, however another side to the story where maybe one or even all three preists were guilty and the court system didn’t do enough investigating and all three pedophiles were reinstated to go on and commit crimes as usual.
This theoretical analysis is what goes on in today’s society where journalists are thrown to the dogs to fight with people’s fury over what each person considers what is right or wrong in their own mind. It is up to us to use this as an applied ethical standard for use with ethical journalism to get the story out to the public. Applied practices are important, for the people trust journalists to give them the top story of the day that would help them make useful decisions throughout their day.