Evaluating the Press' Contribution to the Jena 6
Posted by Christopher Smith
A rather scathing write up on the whole Jena 6 fiasco. I’ve honestly reached the point that I feel I can no longer pay attention to these stories until the hubub has died down (well, at least for the 24-hour news channels to stop covering it). Sure enough, the bits that were shoved in to my ears appear to have little relation with reality. Has the Fourth Estate completely fallen apart or what (and for those of you who have been living in the US longer than me… is their an American equivalent to the fifth estate that one can turn to for quality reporting?).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/default.stm
I could have sworn that there was some caffeinated party that later lead to the US fought a revolution and lots of people were killed such that the BBC isn’t actually an American news source (“no news without taxation” or some such).
Wait, I just followed the link…. one of the top stories on the main page is currently titled: “Court grants Spears child visits US singer Britney Spears is granted three monitored weekly visits to her two small sons by a US court.”
Sorry, they don’t get a passing grade. In fact, they get an F- because of how many words they devoted to the story.