Flutterby™! : old news 2007-06-18 18:18:15.43354+00

old news

2007-06-18 18:18:15.43354+00 by Dan Lyke 2 comments

You know that big headline that reads something like "Police Smash Global Pedophile Ring"? You know what's developed in that case that demands a headline? The guy who was busted last year was finally sentenced. It's a year old story that's getting play again today.

Why? Well, Gloria Brame suggests that editors needed to crowd other potential headlines off the front page today.

Aside from that conviction, the latest news in the article I linked read said:

A man described as Cox's lieutenant, Gordon Mackintosh, tried to resurrect the chat room in January. Authorities in Britain, Canada, Australia and the U.S. again infiltrated the operation.

Which seems kind of a silly thing to announce unless they believe that their infiltration has less value than the announcement that they have.

I'm not saying these busts weren't a good thing, I'm just a little wary of the various announcements and pronouncements that don't all add up.

I'm also way wary of people who who think that any reporting that doesn't match their personal sense of priority is an obvious plot to subvert the body politic. The Afghan bombing story led on this morning radio and TV news and made the front page of my local paper, yet Ms. Brame tells us that Bush ordered up the pedophile story just to keep her from seeing it in her paper. How self-centered can you get?

I had to go use the search function on my usual news sites to find the Afghanistan bombing story, and I don't see any indication in Gloria Brame's post that she sees that as a Bush inspired conspiracy, more that news editors chose one story to run over another.

My hike yesterday started out with 4 of us, but because of the heat and elevation gain, only two of us continued out the full ten and a half miles, me and a friend who worked in the TV news business for many many years. We had a couple of hours to talk while we ticked off the dusty hot miles, and I was reminded of all of those decisions that get made bcause certain subjects suck in the viewers, and that viewers want articles that reinforce their existing prejudces, not ones that provide an accurate assessment of risk, progress, or personal need.

And I'm also suspicious of the sources of the Afghanistan story, I'm not saying that that should have lead, it sounds an awful lot like the bad guys knew that the location was a risk and dragged a bunch of innocent kids in for the sake of making headlines. What bothered me was that I had to read really closely to discover that the article on the child porn bust was really about a year old event and a recent sentencing.