Media outlets are a lot different than they used to be with regards to real investigative reporting and fact checking. Online news and the haste to be the first to get stories out there have made that happen unfortunately. Most just regurgitate information coming off the news wires. Sometimes word for word. They have very few actual reporters on staff and the ones they do have a lot to cover. We're two years out from the actual crime and DM is just not that newsworthy at the moment. It will certainly pick up once the trial begins and each news outlet has a reporter stationed in the courthouse but in the interim, only court related news seems to be making it into MSM. I'm sure if the letters hadn't surfaced until that time, they would have been a hot ticket item for all media outlets. Coming out in the interim is just not that interesting to most people other than those who follow true crime on the internet.
I admit I have not been around Tim's forum in a while. So LE have been in contact with the young lady from the yacht and everything has been verified? I was not aware of that and it's a relief to hear. Thank you for putting that to rest for me.
MOO
Wow, Kamille, it must have really been a long time since you were last here then, and I am glad to bring relief to what must have been a very stressful wait for the last couple of years for you. I am surprised that your curiosity didn't get the better of you in all that time, but nonetheless, I think that you'll be pleased to know that there were two different young ladies seen with him and both have been found safe and sound. No word on which one had the embarrassing period mishap, sorry.
"While the staff sergeant could not shed more light on the now closed investigation, he did say that the two girls who had spent time on the charter with Mr. Millard in 2011 had since been identified and that there was no concern for their safety or well being."
http://www.manitoulin.ca/2013/06/05...onal-media-police-in-assisting-millard-probe/
As for your complaints against the media, I have to say I agree, and by the way, so does the man who discovered the blood aboard the yacht, as quoted from the article above:
"Immediately after The Expositor ran the information that I shared, that same day a story came out in the Hamilton Spectator that stated I saw large amounts of blood around the boat rented by Dellen Millard, owner Chris Blodgett says, Mr. Blodgett explained. That is when the fear set in because I never said anything remotely close to that statement, to anybody, ever. I was then hounded by the Toronto Star (among many others) who basically threatened me by saying they intended to run the same story unless I spoke with them and gave them a new story. I hoped that if I just stopped responding to their emails and phone calls that they would leave me alone. At the same time I told the CBC that while the information reported in The Expositor was accurate, I would decline any further comment.
Mr. Blodgett said he was horrified when that exact headline began to run in every small and large newspaper across the province and country, including the Toronto Star, even after he told reporters the story had been exaggerated."
It's nice that we can agree on something, I think.
Unfortunately, I still disagree about the timing of the letters and the media not cut-and-pasting the story like they usually do. They will copy even the most boring stories at any time, in my opinion. I think it may have less to do with timing and more to do with journalistic ethics, intellectual property rights, or other legalities that make them undesirable to the mass media.
