Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2015 8:26 AM
To: [my group of email gossips at work]
Subject: WTJ [this stands for "What the Jesus", which is a way in which my co-workers say "What the Fuck"... I'm not sure why they do this, and I'm not a fan]
So I responded:
According to NBC, which has a video showing the man running
across the street away from the police who chase after him…
The victim threw at least one “softball size” rock, didn’t
respond to police orders or Taser. There is a man in the video who is not
credited as an eye witness, but what he’s saying makes him sound like he was an
eye witness, who says that he felt police did everything they could to stop the
man, who was telling the police to shoot him. In the printed article, it
says that the victim had worked at an orchard, but recently had suffered from
depression after breaking both wrists in an accident at work.
As a point of comparison:
The NBC News headline is this:
“Pasco, Washington, Man Fatally Shot by Police After Throwing
Rocks”(factual, all pieces of information relevant to the story)
The Chicago Tribune headline is this:
“Washington police shoot and kill man throwing rocks”(factual, all pieces of information relevant to the story)
The Los Angeles Times headline is this:
“Video seems to show man fleeing as police in Washington state shoot
him”(factual, all piece of information relevant to the story)
Yahoo News:
“Police in Washington state fatally shoot man who threw rocks at
them”Al Jazeera America:
“Police in Washington state fatally shoot man running away, witnesses say”
The Fox News headline is this:
“Homeless man allegedly hit officers with rocks before police
used deadly force”(inaccurate at best, purposely misleading at worst, with unsubstantiated information about the victim’s living situation which isn’t relevant to the story)
Even the ABC News article which mentions the victim is homeless
first thing, has a more accurate headline of “Police: Man Killed After He Hit 2
Officers With Rocks”. In both the Fox and ABC news articles, the living
situation has no relevance to the story, and the only way they checked on the
accuracies of the statement that he’s homeless is to say that his last address
is a homeless shelter.
I know it’s not the point of the story (the story is unfortunate
from all aspects, in my opinion), but it is a hot-button issue with me about
how the news is delivered to us. I strongly believe that all people try
to be as intelligent as they can be and live the best lives they know
how. I also believe that part of living with each other in a society like
ours means putting some trust in others. We trust doctors to do their
jobs and help keep us well, we trust the fire department to help keep us safe
from fires and rescue cats in trees (if you believe the
cartoons). We
trust chair makers to make chairs that our mothers can sit on safely, and we
trust food providers not to poison us. And we trust the media, the “4th
Estate”, to keep us
informed about what is important in our lives. Thomas
Jefferson had some strong words about the importance of a free press that
educates the citizens as well as those papers bent on misleading. “The
art of printing secures us against the retrogradation of reason and
information.” In other words, without the art of printing, we lose the
functionality of our reason as well as the facts themselves. Without
information, you would not be able to save money effectively, lose weight, eat
right, send your kids to school, shop, live. We need information, and it
is the responsibility of the press to give us this information when we are
unable to get it on our own. But we have come to a time when we cannot
rely on one source of news in order to know what is going on. Like
examining some disability claims, we must sort through the various sources and
find those things which are universal and disregard those things which are not
supported by the other evidence. And this task becomes increasingly
difficult, if not impossible, for working Americans who have families, lives,
and don’t feel they have the time or desire to go to multiple sources of news
simply to know what the facts are. This responsibility of sorting through
the misinformation the news gives us in order to stay informed has been placed
on our already over-burdened lives, and we are made to feel responsible when we
believe the misinformation, when we form our own opinions based on what we
hear. We, then, get judged and blamed when we trust the news sources we
listen to and believe, the sources we are supposed to trust and believe.
I am disgusted by all news sources that mislead intentionally, because the only
victims of their crimes are the good people watching and trusting them to
deliver facts. And all people try to be as intelligent as they can be and
live the best lives they know how.
Oh yeah, and I think the dude tried to commit suicide by police
officer, from all I’ve read. So… yeah.
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