Kyron Horman story "over-reported"

[Kat010]

It's not a matter of excessive coverage but what that coverage is about. Writers and newspapers are smart in that they know the weight of headlines. A missing child is one thing. A missing child whose household is subject to alleged murder-for-hires, infidelity, etc. is another. The media exist in a way that we, as a collective, fashion them to exist. In other words, don't blame the messenger.

Very well stated, thank you.

And, alas, a child that has been missing for say 2, 3, or more years, with no changes in the status or investigation (if it hasn't gone "cold") simply isn't "news." Sometimes a media outlet will do a story on an anniversary date, but pretty much, no news = no coverage.

I think it would be a good idea if a media outlet had a reporter who specialized in crime, and who once a year did a wrap-up story on missing children. When I worked at one paper, I made sure that I did a yearly wrap-up of major items on my beat.

But today, it's all sound byte, click 'n go. And that's a disgrace, IMHO.

 

[scandi]

Dante discussed how we are punished for allowing this blindness (sin). Plato discusses our ignorance (not knowing they're shadows) and information (knowing they're shadows and that there is a source that causes the shadows [sun shining through highlighting the real people staring at their own shadows on the wall]).

Dante wants us to know that there is a hierarchy, and it's up to you to determine which level you're on and no one really cares, since it's all about them and self-discovery. Plato shows us that through education and wisdom, one can crawl from ignorance into knowledge. If one can do it, then others can follow behind, etc. The problem is, we all seem to want to look at our own shadows on the wall and never see the wall, or those other shadows, and rarely do we turn around to see the way to truth.

Interesting, thanks for making me think!!!!

Goodness Deb, thank you for explaining that. I've always been in awe of your thinking powers since the days of our Sleuthing Madeleine McCann's case. ;}

 

[GrainneDhu]

question for locals:

is this Willamette Week Online an actual newspaper and not just an online blog?

in other words, is the online version the same as the print version?

I noticed they also printed the word '' in the paragraph about Al Gore and well, no legitimate published newspaper I've seen prints the words 'freak-show family' and '' in their stories

just wondering ...

ETA: I just read that there is a print version but I'm still curious as to if it's the same

LadyL, the US media is pretty repressed in language.

The truly top notch, internationally respected news media like the BBC, the Guardian, the London Times, etc, do use the "forbidden" words in their stories.

Without asterisks, even.

 

[GrainneDhu]

bbm

People tend to talk and talk about how they want "quality" news coverage. But when they get it, it's usually...yawn. What sells? Tabloids and tabloid style stuff.

And that's too darned bad.

I once spent weeks looking at financial, business, and demographic data to compile an in-depth look at how a nearby military base affected the area's economy, jobs, and future. Very comprehensive. Couldn't compete with the "spicier" stuff, except with a very select--and small--audience. But it needed doing, so my newspaper funded getting it done.

My best friend is a retired reporter. She said that her biggest story took nearly 18 months of work to figure out. It involved the largest local company (and employer), which is a company with international ties and a major DoD contractor. The story included financial malfeasance, suicide, illegal conduct, sexual escapades that affected the company's performance of contracts, the manipulation of workers' wages via various unethical practises, you name it, it was there.

Her paper serialised it in something like 10 installments because it was just so long and complicated. Lots of sidebar stuff.

The response? The company threatened to sue and tried to take her to court to shake her sources out of her.

Other than that? A big yawn.

She said that her reporting on neighbourhood activities, like open houses, got more response than that one big story did.

Why do we see so much of Lindsay, Britney, Tiger, et al? Because those are the stories that draw eyes.

Serious investigative reporting is often done and published as a labour of love, as you said above.

 

[Kat010]

My best friend is a retired reporter. She said that her biggest story took nearly 18 months of work to figure out. It involved the largest local company (and employer), which is a company with international ties and a major DoD contractor. The story included financial malfeasance, suicide, illegal conduct, sexual escapades that affected the company's performance of contracts, the manipulation of workers' wages via various unethical practises, you name it, it was there.

Her paper serialised it in something like 10 installments because it was just so long and complicated. Lots of sidebar stuff.

The response? The company threatened to sue and tried to take her to court to shake her sources out of her.

Other than that? A big yawn.

She said that her reporting on neighbourhood activities, like open houses, got more response than that one big story did.

Why do we see so much of Lindsay, Britney, Tiger, et al? Because those are the stories that draw eyes.

Serious investigative reporting is often done and published as a labour of love, as you said above.

Thank you so much for sharing this. And greetings to your retired reporter friend! She's so right.

In another investigation that I did, which eventually exposed buying materials--at higher-than-retail costs--from board members' relatives for a publically-funded facility, I almost went to jail. I had a confidential source.

The DA at first refused to follow up on my story. Duh--he had close friends involved. Duh. Not that we ever printed that.

So, instead of support, I was hauled into court to reveal my source. The company attorney told me that once the judge asked me for my source, and I declined, there was nothing he nor the company could do to protect me. The judge could slap me with contempt of court and send me to jail for however long he wanted to.

I was less than an hour away from facing the judge when voila! The DA flipped his stance. I think that what happened was that he realized that a)I was very well-known and popular, and getting me slapped into jail would *not* help his re-election odds and b) that getting me slapped into jail would only increase coverage--at this point I was the Lone Ranger--which would then unearth more stuff. Big oops if he tried to shut me down. Plus, of course, wasn't it Mark Twain who said something like if they're trying to run you out of town best to get in front and make it look like you're leading a parade? That's what the DA did.

So, just before deadline, he issued a statement saying the he--oh great hero!--was investigating the allegations. So, instead of going to jail, I raced from the lawyer's office to our office where the editor had torn up the front page and I rewrote our lead story, all in under an hour.

Doing investigative work is dangerous in many ways. I've been threatened, had my car beaten up as a warning. Etc. ETc.

And on the whole: scandal, sports, and neighborhood news is what the public likes. However, in order to fulfill your duty as a journalist, you have to do the other stuff. And God bless management that backs you vs. going for the cheap 'n easy.

An interesting--to me at least--aside: the day I thought I was going to jail I showed up with my toothbrush with me. For some strange reason I wanted my own toothbrush with me if I was going to jail, and I literally had it in the pocket of my jacket. Go figure!

 

[debs]

They'd have confiscated the toothbrush and accused you of trying to sneak in a weapon, Kat

 

[GrainneDhu]

Perhaps its the media's shortcoming in not writing of other missing children and the plight of the pain the family endure. If not a priority then perhaps they need to make it one. It seems that some of these cases have been there for a long time and the media loses interest after a while, because there is no further sensationalistic news to write to bring in the profits. No missing child should ever be about profit or selling news, i feel it is a media responsibility to keep those missing children's faces in their news articles at least once a week, so people don't forget these poor innocent children.

SBM

I referred earlier to my friend's best piece of investigative journalism (in her own eyes). It involved over 18 months, travelling many thousands of miles, many nights away from home, many meals eaten on the road, etc. She figures that her paper spent over a quarter of a million dollars on her salary, travel, etc, for that one single story.

That was back in the 80s, when newspapers were doing better than they are now. Even then, her paper couldn't afford to fund many stories like that because they just did not draw enough readership. She doubts that they even broke even on that one story, even though it was really big and really important.

Much of the MSM is in financial trouble these days. Fine old papers like the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, with long histories of great reporting, have been forced to go to an online only format with a minimum of local reporters. Some have closed forever. Some have been bought out and have been converted to fluff journalism.

Assigning a responsibility without funding it is called an unfunded mandate in legislative terms. The local government entities who are actually charged with carrying out unfunded mandates hate them because the money has to come from somewhere.

Same thing is true of the media.

Most serious media outlets walk a line between serious reporting and providing enough fluff to keep their audiences and advertising revenues.

There are so many serious but complicated issues to report on and each outlet prioritises differently. In that, they are no different from any private individual. The vast majority of us cannot contribute money to every cause we think is worthy because we'd end up giving something like 15 cents per cause which would cost more than that in processing expenses, so we would actually end up hurting all those causes.

So one paper runs a "labour of love" story about disparities in education. Another runs a serious report on just where taxpayer's dollars are being spent. Another runs a report about the fate of seriously mentally ill people in a recession.

The thing all those stories have in common is that they don't draw public attention. Without public attention, the funding simply does not exist for many of those stories to be reported.

We, as the public, are literally getting the media reporting we pay for.

 

[Kat010]

SBM

I referred earlier to my friend's best piece of investigative journalism (in her own eyes). It involved over 18 months, travelling many thousands of miles, many nights away from home, many meals eaten on the road, etc. She figures that her paper spent over a quarter of a million dollars on her salary, travel, etc, for that one single story.

That was back in the 80s, when newspapers were doing better than they are now. Even then, her paper couldn't afford to fund many stories like that because they just did not draw enough readership. She doubts that they even broke even on that one story, even though it was really big and really important.

Much of the MSM is in financial trouble these days. Fine old papers like the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, with long histories of great reporting, have been forced to go to an online only format with a minimum of local reporters. Some have closed forever. Some have been bought out and have been converted to fluff journalism.

Assigning a responsibility without funding it is called an unfunded mandate in legislative terms. The local government entities who are actually charged with carrying out unfunded mandates hate them because the money has to come from somewhere.

Same thing is true of the media.

Most serious media outlets walk a line between serious reporting and providing enough fluff to keep their audiences and advertising revenues.

There are so many serious but complicated issues to report on and each outlet prioritises differently. In that, they are no different from any private individual. The vast majority of us cannot contribute money to every cause we think is worthy because we'd end up giving something like 15 cents per cause which would cost more than that in processing expenses, so we would actually end up hurting all those causes.

So one paper runs a "labour of love" story about disparities in education. Another runs a serious report on just where taxpayer's dollars are being spent. Another runs a report about the fate of seriously mentally ill people in a recession.

The thing all those stories have in common is that they don't draw public attention. Without public attention, the funding simply does not exist for many of those stories to be reported.

We, as the public, are literally getting the media reporting we pay for.

Brilliant post and analysis. And so true.

Now with 24/7 "coverage" via online and TV, attention spans of the average viewing/reading market are down. Costs are up. It's expensive to fund a solid journalistic enterprise, and yes, the good ones are folding, falling like a rag tag deck of cards and blowing away.

The answer is indeed "blowin' in the wind".