Knox story example of crack cocaine journalism (3/2713)
There are a lot of people who like crack, but handing it to addicts on a silver platter has been deemed harmful to the common good. There is profit in peddling crack, but dealing the dope has been deemed illegal.
There is profit to be made in peddling stories about a beautiful young woman caught up in a sex game gone bad that ended in murder. But playing the latest twist in the sordid Amanda Knox saga among the top stories in the world is the journalistic equivalent to waving a packed crack pipe in front of a roomful of strung out junkies.
The U.S. and European media is going gaga over the Knox story yet again, drawn as irresistibly to the college student hottie's plight as an addict is drawn to his sugar daddy. The latest development -- the reversal of Knox's murder acquittal in Italy -- has generated more than 550 news stories over the past 24 hours.
It's a classic case of shameless pandering to the most base desires of media consumers. Given the hallowed principle of double jeopardy in the U.S. legal system, it is highly unlikely that American officials would allow Knox to be extradited to face a second trial for the 2007 murder of her British college student roomate in Perugia, Italy, Meredith Kercher. And Knox and her attorneys have made it clear that she will not return to Italy willingly to participate in a new trial.
So, other than the opportunity to cash in on Knox yet again, there's little justification to make the acquittal reversal a top story. Based on a Google news search, here are other stories of the day that deserved more attention but fell far short of the Knox case reporting:
- The U.S. gun control debate, including reports of school districts arming administrators in response to the Newtown, Conn., elementary school massacre: 97 stories.
- This week's meeting of leaders from the world's fastest emerging economics, the so-called BRICS nations Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa: 499 stories.
- North Korea's issuing of a new round of threats against U.S. military bases: 358 stories.
- Studies showing that fewer hours of doctor training in the United States is leading to more medical
errors: 22 stories.
Murder cases are inherently interesting, and even this nearly meaningless twist in the Knox case deserves a measure of media coverage. But is it really more important than the 10,000 Americans on average who are killed in gun violence every year? Is it more important than fundamental changes in the global economy? Is it more important than the potential of North Korea sparking a nuclear war that would claim the lives of millions? Is it more important than an increase in the number of patients suffering death and disability in U.S. hospitals?
PBS telling truths about gun violence in America (2/20/13)
With all due respect to Big Bird, the crown jewel of America's Public Broadcasting System is journalism.
This week, PBS is airing After Newtown, a series of special reports on gun laws, mental illness and school security. After watching two of the Frontline special reports last night, I urge all of my fellow Americans and anyone overseas who is interested in the U.S. gun culture to watch these television programs. There is also a wealth of information available online at the link above.
PBS is providing a dispassionate, in-depth and highly professional examination of the key issues surrounding gun violence in America. It's free and literally available at your fingertips.
It's extremely hard to find this kind of unbiased information on the polarizing issue of gun violence anywhere else. I implore my fellow citizens: view this valuable information, educate yourself about aspects of the issues that are unfamiliar to you, draw your own conclusions, then contact your elected officials at all levels to help make sure effective measures are taken to rein in a problem that is killing and maiming thousands of Americans every year.
Value of the written word in the Internet Age (2/9/13)
For those of us who love and respect journalism, these are troubling times.
In a recent business meeting with a magazine publisher, I was told that one of the prime effects of online publishing has been the devaluation of the written word. My colleague's logic was rock solid: Who can be bothered to sit down and exercise their intellect reading text when it's far more easy to get the same information watching a video that's available with the touch of a button?
But I still hope he's wrong.
Many years ago, I read a dispatch from U.S. war correspondent Ernie Pyle that convinced me of the enduring value of the written word. The story, "The Death of Captain Waskow," is widely considered as Pyle's masterpiece:
AT THE FRONT LINES IN ITALY, January 10, 1944 – In this war I have known a lot of officers who were loved and respected by the soldiers under them. But never have I crossed the trail of any man as beloved as Capt. Henry T. Waskow of Belton, Texas.
Capt. Waskow was a company commander in the 36th Division. He had led his company since long before it left the States. He was very young, only in his middle twenties, but he carried in him a sincerity and gentleness that made people want to be guided by him.
"After my own father, he came next," a sergeant told me.
"He always looked after us," a soldier said. "He’d go to bat for us every time."
"I’ve never knowed him to do anything unfair," another one said.
I was at the foot of the mule trail the night they brought Capt. Waskow’s body down. The moon was nearly full at the time, and you could see far up the trail, and even part way across the valley below. Soldiers made shadows in the moonlight as they walked.
Dead men had been coming down the mountain all evening, lashed onto the backs of mules. They came lying belly-down across the wooden pack-saddles, their heads hanging down on the left side of the mule, their stiffened legs sticking out awkwardly from the other side, bobbing up and down as the mule walked.
The Italian mule-skinners were afraid to walk beside dead men, so Americans had to lead the mules down that night. Even the Americans were reluctant to unlash and lift off the bodies at the bottom, so an officer had to do it himself, and ask others to help.
The first one came early in the morning. They slid him down from the mule and stood him on his feet for a moment, while they got a new grip. In the half light he might have been merely a sick man standing there, leaning on the others. Then they laid him on the ground in the shadow of the low stone wall alongside the road.
I don’t know who that first one was. You feel small in the presence of dead men, and ashamed at being alive, and you don’t ask silly questions.
We left him there beside the road, that first one, and we all went back into the cowshed and sat on water cans or lay on the straw, waiting for the next batch of mules.
Somebody said the dead soldier had been dead for four days, and then nobody said anything more about it. We talked soldier talk for an hour or more. The dead man lay all alone outside in the shadow of the low stone wall.
Then a soldier came into the cowshed and said there were some more bodies outside. We went out into the road. Four mules stood there, in the moonlight, in the road where the trail came down off the mountain. The soldiers who led them stood there waiting. "This one is Captain Waskow," one of them said quietly.
Two men unlashed his body from the mule and lifted it off and laid it in the shadow beside the low stone wall. Other men took the other bodies off. Finally there were five lying end to end in a long row, alongside the road. You don’t cover up dead men in the combat zone. They just lie there in the shadows until somebody else comes after them.
The unburdened mules moved off to their olive orchard. The men in the road seemed reluctant to leave. They stood around, and gradually one by one I could sense them moving close to Capt. Waskow’s body. Not so much to look, I think, as to say something in finality to him, and to themselves. I stood close by and I could hear.
One soldier came and looked down, and he said out loud, "God damn it." That’s all he said, and then he walked away. Another one came. He said, "God damn it to hell anyway." He looked down for a few last moments, and then he turned and left.
Another man came; I think he was an officer. It was hard to tell officers from men in the half light, for all were bearded and grimy dirty. The man looked down into the dead captain’s face, and then he spoke directly to him, as though he were alive. He said: "I’m sorry, old man."
Then a soldier came and stood beside the officer, and bent over, and he too spoke to his dead captain, not in a whisper but awfully tenderly, and he said:
"I sure am sorry, sir."
Then the first man squatted down, and he reached down and took the dead hand, and he sat there for a full five minutes, holding the dead hand in his own and looking intently into the dead face, and he never uttered a sound all the time he sat there.
And finally he put the hand down, and then reached up and gently straightened the points of the captain’s shirt collar, and then he sort of rearranged the tattered edges of his uniform around the wound. And then he got up and walked away down the road in the moonlight, all alone.
After that the rest of us went back into the cowshed, leaving the five dead men lying in a line, end to end, in the shadow of the low stone wall. We lay down on the straw in the cowshed, and pretty soon we were all asleep.
For those of us who love and respect journalism, these are troubling times.
In a recent business meeting with a magazine publisher, I was told that one of the prime effects of online publishing has been the devaluation of the written word. My colleague's logic was rock solid: Who can be bothered to sit down and exercise their intellect reading text when it's far more easy to get the same information watching a video that's available with the touch of a button?
But I still hope he's wrong.
Many years ago, I read a dispatch from U.S. war correspondent Ernie Pyle that convinced me of the enduring value of the written word. The story, "The Death of Captain Waskow," is widely considered as Pyle's masterpiece:
AT THE FRONT LINES IN ITALY, January 10, 1944 – In this war I have known a lot of officers who were loved and respected by the soldiers under them. But never have I crossed the trail of any man as beloved as Capt. Henry T. Waskow of Belton, Texas.
Capt. Waskow was a company commander in the 36th Division. He had led his company since long before it left the States. He was very young, only in his middle twenties, but he carried in him a sincerity and gentleness that made people want to be guided by him.
"After my own father, he came next," a sergeant told me.
"He always looked after us," a soldier said. "He’d go to bat for us every time."
"I’ve never knowed him to do anything unfair," another one said.
I was at the foot of the mule trail the night they brought Capt. Waskow’s body down. The moon was nearly full at the time, and you could see far up the trail, and even part way across the valley below. Soldiers made shadows in the moonlight as they walked.
Dead men had been coming down the mountain all evening, lashed onto the backs of mules. They came lying belly-down across the wooden pack-saddles, their heads hanging down on the left side of the mule, their stiffened legs sticking out awkwardly from the other side, bobbing up and down as the mule walked.
The Italian mule-skinners were afraid to walk beside dead men, so Americans had to lead the mules down that night. Even the Americans were reluctant to unlash and lift off the bodies at the bottom, so an officer had to do it himself, and ask others to help.
The first one came early in the morning. They slid him down from the mule and stood him on his feet for a moment, while they got a new grip. In the half light he might have been merely a sick man standing there, leaning on the others. Then they laid him on the ground in the shadow of the low stone wall alongside the road.
I don’t know who that first one was. You feel small in the presence of dead men, and ashamed at being alive, and you don’t ask silly questions.
We left him there beside the road, that first one, and we all went back into the cowshed and sat on water cans or lay on the straw, waiting for the next batch of mules.
Somebody said the dead soldier had been dead for four days, and then nobody said anything more about it. We talked soldier talk for an hour or more. The dead man lay all alone outside in the shadow of the low stone wall.
Then a soldier came into the cowshed and said there were some more bodies outside. We went out into the road. Four mules stood there, in the moonlight, in the road where the trail came down off the mountain. The soldiers who led them stood there waiting. "This one is Captain Waskow," one of them said quietly.
Two men unlashed his body from the mule and lifted it off and laid it in the shadow beside the low stone wall. Other men took the other bodies off. Finally there were five lying end to end in a long row, alongside the road. You don’t cover up dead men in the combat zone. They just lie there in the shadows until somebody else comes after them.
The unburdened mules moved off to their olive orchard. The men in the road seemed reluctant to leave. They stood around, and gradually one by one I could sense them moving close to Capt. Waskow’s body. Not so much to look, I think, as to say something in finality to him, and to themselves. I stood close by and I could hear.
One soldier came and looked down, and he said out loud, "God damn it." That’s all he said, and then he walked away. Another one came. He said, "God damn it to hell anyway." He looked down for a few last moments, and then he turned and left.
Another man came; I think he was an officer. It was hard to tell officers from men in the half light, for all were bearded and grimy dirty. The man looked down into the dead captain’s face, and then he spoke directly to him, as though he were alive. He said: "I’m sorry, old man."
Then a soldier came and stood beside the officer, and bent over, and he too spoke to his dead captain, not in a whisper but awfully tenderly, and he said:
"I sure am sorry, sir."
Then the first man squatted down, and he reached down and took the dead hand, and he sat there for a full five minutes, holding the dead hand in his own and looking intently into the dead face, and he never uttered a sound all the time he sat there.
And finally he put the hand down, and then reached up and gently straightened the points of the captain’s shirt collar, and then he sort of rearranged the tattered edges of his uniform around the wound. And then he got up and walked away down the road in the moonlight, all alone.
After that the rest of us went back into the cowshed, leaving the five dead men lying in a line, end to end, in the shadow of the low stone wall. We lay down on the straw in the cowshed, and pretty soon we were all asleep.
Journalists take mortal risks to keep you informed (2/8/13)
Working through yet another severe storm event in the newsroom tonight, and watching reporters and photographers going out to cover Winter Storm Nemo, has been a reminder of the incredible commitment journalists have to pursue important stories.
All around the globe, journalists literally put their lives on the line every day because they take their roles as bulwarks of democracy with deadly seriousness. Whether it's enduring sexual assault in Cairo, dodging sniper fire in Sarajevo, braving hurricane-force winds along the Gulf Coast or facing some other danger, reporters and photographers bear witness to the worst of humanity and the cruelest outbursts of Mother Nature.
The Committee to Protect Journalists reported a spike in the number of deaths among my colleagues in 2012, mainly linked to coverage of violence in Brazil, Pakistan, Syria and Somalia. With at least 67 journalists killed last year in the line of duty, 2012 was one of the bloodiest years in the profession since CPJ started tracking the deaths two decades ago. There were at least 28 journalists killed in Syria alone.
My heart and condolences go out to all of the loved ones who lost these brave souls.
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