Off topic but on topic: Can these sensational headlines be an opportunity?
There was a time where people used to get their news from the local paper. On their walk to work they would pick up the newspaper at the corner news stand and read about the world’s events on their bus to work. If a headline grabbed their attention, they would read the story. If it was of no interest they would skip over it and move on. Some people pulled out the business section, because that’s all they cared about. Others would jump right to sports, or world news. But the newspaper was their only option to receive current events, so the few dozen pages between the front page and the back cover of the local newspaper had a monopoly on reader’s attention.
In the 1950s, televisions became more popular in households. They were mostly black and white, small screens with a handful of channel selections that covered a broad selection of entertainment choices intended to appeal to the entire family. There were kids shows, variety shows, news shows, etc. With the limited channel choices and the headache of having to adjust the antennae to tune the image to something that was visible, most families took in the content that was fed to them.
By the 80’s, cable television expanded the number of channels people could chose from. It also added niche stations. If you wanted to listen to music all day, you had MTV. If you wanted News, there was CNN. No longer was content limited to the finite amount of printed pages between covers of a newspaper, now there was all-news, all-the time. With that, news outlets had to come up with more content to fill the hours. Not only would they need to jazz up the content to keep viewers engaged, but they had to target the content to an audience because there were now other channels competing for the viewership.
Then came the internet and everything exploded! The billions of pages of the world wide web became the world’s newspaper and anyone with an internet connection and a social media account became a journalist. No longer could you pull out the section that interests you or watch the channel you preferred. Now artificial intelligence fed your stories to you and directed your preferences.
A couple of weeks ago, a former employee of Facebook, turned whistleblower, called into question the Company’s ethics, saying that the social network put profits over safety, It remains to see how significant the societal impact will be, but this is hardly a revelation.
in 1912, the Titanic became one of the worlds biggest stories and one of the first times in history that news outlets competed for attention. As an archive of Titanic headlines states, “Newspapers fed the public interest in the Titanic disaster by publishing sensational banner headlines, reports, stories, special sections, photographs, and editorials. This collection shows the result of different efforts to balance the need to sell newspapers and the reporting of accurate information.” The disparity between the reports are incredible. One British paper even reported that there were no casualties!
Since that time, the balance has shifted even further from the responsibility to report accurate information towards the need to sell advertising space.The internet has made things so much worse, but has not been the origin of skewed messaging. Depending on which cable network you watched, the last presidential administration was an entirely different experience. Local news stations air scary teasers, such as “Could your drinking water be poisoning you, story at 11” to induce viewers to tune into their channel. And newspaper headlines needed to be more sensational to sell papers about the Titanic. Why is the Facebook whistleblower even relevant?
As we often ask ourselves in the reform/abolition movement, “what will be the tipping point”? What can we point to in a chronology of events where the registry shifted from “remedial” to “punitive”? Here too, will the Facebook whistleblower become a tipping point in the public’s demand for responsible reporting? Will it cause everyone to question the validity of everything they read? Will there be a shift back towards truth and integrity, or have things gotten too far gone and it’ll just continue getting worse?
We are currently in Halloween month. The season where Patch runs their series of scare stories naming and shaming people on the registry and local news stations will be rehashing the same myths they recycle every year. The stories are unquestionably intended to scare parents into tuning in or clicking on the headlines. As we’ve repeatedly reported, year over year, these stories are not grounded in fact.
While we won’t be able to control what is fed to the audience, what if we used these click-bait stories to our advantage? What if we filled the comments section of each article with facts? What if we pointed out how inaccurate the reported information is and instead, posted pages and pages of anti-registry information? We always talk about educating the public and getting out message in front of the right audience? Maybe this season is our opportunity to turn this attention in our favor?
Something to think about.
This was a very well written article. The point I want to add is my own opinion that we don’t have very many “journalists” anymore. What we do have is a vast majority of entertainers posing as journalists in an environment that’s reminiscent of the USSR Pravda days.
Fake news and propaganda is nothing new. Ben Franklin created fake newspapers to influence British citizens.
Each new form of media helped usher in new waves of moral panics and particularly sex panics.
The 1980s gave us the first 24 hour news networks. How were they going to make news an all day every day thing whereas news had been limited to newspapers or half hour news shows? Dimple– use if sensationalism.
The rise of “reality tv” has been overlooked as a platform for propaganda as well. Fox us Cops then followed up with America’s Most Wanted, which led to true crime shows and dramas like SVU.
We cannot overlook the powerful and negative influences of the media that preceded the Internet.
Communications have been in controversy ever since ‘smoke signals’ were invented. On March 10, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell made the first phone call ever. Moments later he was notified that his car’s extended warranty had expired. The answer is trying to live a flawless life so that any negative commentary can be assumed to be a lie. Newspapers and the internet have positive and negative aspects. We must be ready to counter the negative with ‘cold/hard’ facts and let the public decide when the credibility of newspapers and internet have expired.
Thank You for expressing your thoughts here. I too have been thinking along those same lines lately.
Also in the news lately was about little 3 yr. old Christopher in the Houston Texas area. There was a lot of effort from the public to find the little boy. All to no avail till someone happened to hear some crying near there property and found him after 4 days. Thank God, he is all right.
The boys mother automatically from the first was saying on the news, “ someone has kidnaped him.”Why would she automatically think that way? And how much of the efforts to find him were spent on checking out the list on the registry instead of looking at where he could have possibly could have wandered off to. We will probably never know but it just makes me wonder if more effort could have been directed in the right direction success could have been achieved quicker.
Here in Jacksonville we had a similar case, a brother and sister went missing around Christmas time a couple years ago(give or take). All the news could focus on was the “alarming” amount of registrants in the area (it was about 40 I think) and that JSO was making sure to vet each and every one of them. They also kept chasing false leads because a ” white car driven by a male” was seen in the area about the time the kids wandered off. Meanwhile those two kids were literally just hiding in the woods roughly 500 feet from their home,and they did so for about two days(not exactly sure on the time-line) They hid out in an old pump house, that had allegedly been searched on the first day. The only real consolation was the general attitude on social media concerning the registrants being essentially interrogated, was negative towards law enforcement. Most people posting thought I was a waste of time and that those kids were probably still in the area. It was refreshing to see some common sense for once.
Encouraging that those on social media saw through local news’ hysteria!
People waking up to the fact that you can’t use the registry to locate missing kids.
Sounds like the coolest idea since ice-cream! If we flood each posting with dozens of comments pointing out the fallacy of their position people might get the message. FAC send us a link to the posting along with suggested facts to include in our reply. We put the facts in our own words and fire away. We may not change other’ minds, but we can get them thinking! And maybe doing their own research?
Wikipedia has this as a description of Phobia:
A phobia is a type of anxiety disorder defined by a persistent and excessive fear of an object or situation. Phobias typically, result in a rapid onset of fear and are present for more than six months. Those affected will go to great lengths to avoid the situation or object, to a degree greater than the actual danger posed.
If you look at how persons with a past sex offense conviction are treated, especially around Halloween, it must mean that most people in the U.S. have a clinical disorder.
Anonymous
Great point. Love it!!!
It has been said that the oldest occupation was prostitution but actually thats wrong or who is thy brothers keeper. I’m sure the oldest occupating was harvesting or herding. Today its intimidation in many ways, means, and measures. Its all about the money today or love of money in many circles. One wonders if prostitution was the only opportunity to make a living at for a single person.
I myself would rather lose than win. If one win’s there goes their pride. If one loses, try, try again. I’m sure it took time to invent smoke signals or even to plan. Same as telephone, cables, trains and tracks. Even the invention of the wheel was at times good and used for bad purposes.
Still the tongue no one can tame. While Florida has its good, bad, and ugly vices doesn’t all states have some potato head busybody in Iowa or Idaho…….
Sorry for being way off topic. But I have been searching for information and can not find it. With Halloween coming up, what is the Florida Statue that governs. A registered person regards to decorating etc. We don’t celebrate the holiday but they always come by. I have been off paper since 2007
Sorry again. Didn’t know where to ask
(NOTICE: CITATION MISSING)
The regulations are basically the same as Christmas, Independence Day, and pretty much any holiday. We are not allowed to have our homes and property decorated at all. As for Halloween, we are forced to display a visible sign in our front yard stating “no candy here”, we must turn off all our lights (especially porch lights) and there will be law enforcement checking to make sure you are “obeying”. And if that’s not insulting enough, we are not allowed to leave our house (unless it’s work related) during trick-or-treating hours.
I do not believe this is correct. A person only subject to registration laws, in other words not on supervision, does not have state law barring participation in these holidays in any way to my knowledge.
There are, however, local ordinances in various counties and cities that do concern holidays. I suggest looking at the state law that applies to you (Offender 943.0435 I believe vs. Pred 775.21 I believe), then the county and city, if applicable, ordinances.
That is what I thought as well, but they keep coming by each of the last 2 years. Before that they never did. I have searched the county codes and can find nothing either. As I mentioned we don’t really celebrate Halloween any way but I kind of freaked a bit when I saw them and put them in the garage. I will the state in full. Thank you response
I don’t live in Floriduh but in the state where I live I do not believe that there are any state laws at all that govern holidays. I certainly don’t follow any and have been told of none. I would try to avoid living in a city because that is just one more level of criminal, big government that might try to have immoral “laws” that they would try to inflict upon my family. The less government there is, the better.
On Halloween, I ensure that I am nowhere to found. I can’t remember the last year I was at my home. The criminal regimes don’t have a clue where I go or what I do. I am always around children. As long as the Oppression Lists (OLs) exist, that is going to be the case. The OLs deserve complete disrespect and contempt, and to ensure that they are not just worthless, but a lot worse. The OLs are counterproductive.
I just looked at the updated ordinance for Duval county and I couldn’t find anything about having to be at home during trick or treating hours.
J. S. Smith
Missouri has the exact same laws, but they don’t apply to everyone. Only to those who were put on the list after the law was enacted. Not sure of the date. It was challenged in court and determined that it was punishment so could not be enforced retroactively.
Is this totally screwed up or what?
Yes it is. And it is also idiotic nonsense that only idiots believe is useful.
Yesterday I read a comment article quotation of Samual Alito , the U S Supreme Court Judge who admits the court is a victim of Big business and Republican manipulation in there court decisions. It has been this way for a long time. Makes you wonder if the registry is one of those decisions he was talking about.
I don’t know how to transfer the thread here but if someone else read the article it’s very interesting. You might be able to google his name and bring up the article.
As a registered person I know how difficult it is to live a “normal” life. And mainstream media is most definitely to blame for the seemingly endless barrage of discrimination and even harrassment by people who are fed these false fear tactics, especially on social media. Here in Jacksonville, channel 4 will broadcast their special kind of fear mongering regarding Halloween and sex offenders like they do every year. But I often try to inform people about the facts by referring them to this (and Derrick’s) webs and encourage them to become enlightened to the truth instead of just relying on mainstream media stoking their fears and paranoia. And whenever a story about a sex offender appears on my Facebook page and I read the nasty comments about us, I always reply with a link to your website. Education is the key.