On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 9:30 AM, Joe Hass <[email protected]> wrote:
> A special brand of shame to Candy Crowley, who I would've thought was > better than this.. > > > I did not watch any of the TV news coverage of this story, but my FB feed blew up with outrage about CNN's coverage, was it on Saturday? But I still have not gotten a clear sense of what the charge is against CNN, and what CNN would say they were trying to do. As I understand the case, two teen age kids were convicted of a sexual assualt (digitally pentrating the vagina of a teenage girl). Apparently the girl was incompacited by alcohol, and many more boys may have assaulted her as well. I guess these guys then also posted pictures and bragged about afterwards? This is a disgusting and horrible crime, and it seems the evidence was clear and compelling, the verdict reasonable and just, and the sentence in line with the law as it applies to minors. The criticsm appears to be that CNN spent more time in the wake of the verdict talking about the impact it would have on the futures of the two boys than they did talking about the impact of the crime on the victim. On its face this does not seem outreageous to me. I know there is a whole industry that has sprung up around victim's rights, but the truth is that a criminal trial is about the accused perpetrators of a crime, not about the victims. When reporting a trial and its outcome, it seems appropriate to focus much, perhaps most, of the coverage on the accused. If a crime is somehow completed in public, or against a public person, then the news media would appropriatly cover the victim when reporting the crime itself. In the case of crimes of sexual assualt, especially with minor children, the victim's identity is ussually kept anonymous, as it seems to have been in this case. For ethical, practical storytelling reasons, it seems understandable that less attention would be paid to the victim in the immediate aftermath of a verdict like this than to the now guilty perpetrators. On the other hand, it is possible that the criticism of CNN is not that they spent more time focusing on the rapists than the victim, but that the attention they paid was too sympathetic. I did not watch the video, so I can't judge this. If their coverage was something like: "It us unjust that these academically gifted athletes have had their life ruined just because of a bit of over rambunctious fun when they were 16", then that would be horrible and I would join in on the criticism. If instead the coverage was more like: "The sentence here is more serious than just 2 or 3 years in juvinile detention (if that is what they got, I am not sure) - this will also ruin their once promising chances at college and professional sports careers", then that frankly sounds about what I would expect them to do. Has anyone provided a close comparison of how how MSNBC and FN covered the event? -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
