ACTION NEEDED: FSUNews.com, this article is an example of bad journalism
Jacob Goetz with FSUNews.com for Florida State students in Tallahassee, FL, stated that according to the Tampa Bay Times, “2017 through 2020 saw a particular increase in crime on Halloween night…Some of the most common crimes committed on Halloween are assault, battery, vandalism and SEXUAL ASSAULT.” When you read the article that Mr. Goetz references in the Tampa Bay Times, there is absolutely no mention of a sex crime of any type, let alone any research showing that sexual assaults are typical on Halloween night.
Jacob Goetz got it wrong and furthered the dangerous “sex offender” myth.
I have emailed Mr. Kervern and Mr. Putnik with FSUNews.com concerning the gross mistake Mr. Goetz made in his article. We need for more people to contact this news outlet to let them know that they “got it wrong”.
I could not find Mr. Goetz’s email address, but the following people at FSUNews.com can be contacted about this erroneous story:
Jensen Kervern, Editor-In-Chief, jkervern@tallahassee.com
Gary Putnik, Managing Editor, gputnik@tallahassee.com
Research can be found at floridaactioncommittee.org in the Media dropdown box under “Articles and Studies Containing Research”.
It’s OK if we don’t have the reporter’s email. It’s their editors who need to hear from us, and we have those. You would only contact the reporter if they’re doing an ongoing series, or assigned to focus continually on crime reporting, etc. Thank you FAC and Media Committee volunteers.
Good advice, Jacob.
Since this is a school newspaper, more than just the editors can be hit up with your thought, but the school president, et al to voice your opposition to this hit piece as they are acting (writing) on behalf of Florida State Univ as their representatives: https://president.fsu.edu/
His leadership team is listed and General Counsel is a good place to write to since they are legal reps to ensure the school stays ethically and legally within bounds.
I will also encourage you to read the school newspaper’s Ethical Conduct page which is great fodder for addressing this article with them and their stated commitment to ethical journalism: https://cm.fsunews.com/ethical-conduct
As an associate newspaper with the USA Today, you probably could hit up the Leadership at the USA Today as well to express your disagreement with this hit piece: https://www.usatoday.com/contact/staff/
To be read, keep the argument points salient, cogent, and not derogatory when creating an entire letter, e.g. i.e. see Letter Writer’s example above.
Pressure from above can yield better reporting and writing in the future but also possibly draw attention to the plight of those in/out of FLA who are PFRs where FLA still impacts them. The Frat article is a good one to remind FSU that they cannot cast the first stone for they are not clean of sin.
That is a great suggestion!! On it!
Thank you G.
Thank you TS.
Done!
Following is what I emailed to the editor-in-chief:
Ms. Kervern, thank you for the story, “Staying Safe on Halloween as a College Student.” We always appreciate when the FSU News section reports practical stories that are meant to keep us safe, and I certainly worry about my daughter’s safety on campus. A wide variety of crimes can take place on Halloween, DUI especially.
But I do also have one constructive complaint, because the story seems to take a nosedive when it arrives at, “According to CBS News, sex offenders also tend to become more active on Halloween night.” That statement includes a link to a CBS news report that says no such thing! In fact, all available research has firmly debunked the notion that there is any discernible increase in sexual abuse on Halloween night; and most of those that DO happen are not perpetrated by anyone with a criminal record.
What the linked CBS News report DOES say is that LAW ENFORCEMENT becomes more active on Halloween night, particularly with respect to surveilling those listed on the sex offender registry. And law enforcement is often required to do so by law, but as research has increasingly shown, the laws prompting law enforcement to do so are driven by what we now know to be urban legend.
So, I hope you will continue reporting on these issues, and if there’s any way you could revisit the one outrageously misleading portion of this story (at least next time), that would be wonderful!
Thank You,
[my name]
[my city]
Both emails bounced back as undeliverable. “gputnik wasn’t found at Tallahassee.com,” “jkervern wasn’t found at Tallahassee.com.”
Did anyone else’s go through?
Mine bounced back as well.
Mine bounced too.
Very interesting. Both of mine went through yesterday (Sunday) at 11:00 pm. I double checked and you used the exact emails I used. (Thought I might have made a typo in my post, but did not.)
I found them at https://static.fsunews.com/staff/
Please double check for me and let me know if I did indeed mess up. Thanks.
Very interesting. Why would mine go through, but others are blocked?
What are FSView and Florida Flambeau?
Should we perhaps be trying to contact the News Editor rather than more general editors?
If I google the news Editor and a page comes up saying she (not Gary Putnik) is Managing Editor, is this contact page perhaps out of date?
The mystery continues, but I console myself with the observation that the impact of this article on registrants and their families is probably not that high.
Again, interesting. I used the info at the bottom of their homepage: Staff Directory.
Comments are open…if you are logged into your Facebook account.
Tap “view comments” at bottom of article, and feel free to borrow from my failed email above, since I doubt I’ll reach them myself.
Can a registered sex offender in Florida have a Facebook account? In the past, everytime I made a Facebook account and then registered that Facebook account with FDLE. Facebook deleted/deactivated my Facebook account. Florida doesn’t say RSOs cannot have a Facebook account but Facebook community standards say no (Convicted) sex offender can have a Facebook account. Although I’m not convicted, I am a RSO. I kinda miss contact with some of my military and Army friends and some family that live in other states but I definitely do not miss the drama on Facebook not to mention some other cons that Facebook brings. Oh and Mark Zuckerberg getting rich off everyone’s info that accesses his platform. Still, just curious how a RSO can legally go about having a FB account?
Tim P., you hit the nail on the head. No laws prevent you from having a FB account. But because you did follow the law and register yours, FB took it upon themselves to exclude you by deleting your account. If you really want to use FB, find an anonymous way that won’t get you in trouble. Or don’t use it at all. Frankly, I’d rather the Kremlin have my personal information that Zuckerberg and his corporate bullies.
Lol the Kremlin over Zuckerberg.
Yeah I’d rather not face a federal charge by having an anonymous FB account. I’m even weary about using family members accounts to contact old army buddies or family. I guess you could call that extremely cautious or PTSD. Not sure if there is a law saying a sex offender can be in violation of the registry or arrested for using a 3rd party to contact a friend over a social media (Facebook) account but I even steer clear of that.
Comments are open…if you are logged into your Facebook account.?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
{REALLY}????????????????????????????????????
Thank you for writing.
Did this reporter happen to mention all the serial abuse/sexual assault cases that happen on campus at frat parties? Or did they just point the finger in another direction? I mean seriously, not to long ago I seen in the news where a bunch of frat houses had protesters outside in the front lawn of fraternity houses where female students was raped or sexually assaulted. Let’s distract the students from one of the major problems on campus and create a boogie man scenario with false or no research reporting. Oh btw frat parties happen more often than Halloween js. But let’s point the finger else where.
Very good point.
The reporter’s job is news. You think frat party sexual assault is news to readers of FSU News?
Reporters are unlikely to regard feedback such as, “you should ALSO be reporting on x,” unless we have a real scoop for them and their editors.
Yeah you’re right sexual assaults at college or frat parties wouldn’t be news. However, the reporter titled his article as if he was trying to protect students. This is from 2016. https://thetab.com/us/floridastate/2016/12/02/half-of-reported-rapes-at-fsu-occur-at-frats-new-map-shows-5348
It’s interesting to me that CBS said nothing about what the FSU reported did, even tho the FSU reported cited CBS. Seems to me that the FSU reporter has an agenda in spreading misinformation. Glad we have our own fact checkers.
I would like to apologize to many on here and yes to Cherokee. See I understand Cherokee’s point of view as many do plus a bit more. Yes I took criminal Justice classes in college. Was pressured a bit to graduate which I am grateful for. Yes, I was even in classes with State Troopers and some that put me in jail plus the one that gave me my drivers test.
Sure the city police already knew me from all the weekend drinking I use to get into. Now this registry is a bit of a bias judgment type of issue. One could even look at it as a class action in a demining way.
Yes I lived in Huntington, WV and things don’t turn out the way one wants. Went to Charleston High for a while after getting kicked out of School where I grew up in. No parent wants their kid to get kicked out of school.
The main thing is education is very important and even with much of this Sex registry issue yes their is a right and wrong of how government effects others such as this registry that castrates so many. One wonders where is truth in the American Justice system today.
This American Justice is a bit bias in the way this registry is. One could say American newspapers are like that also.
I just went to the “contact us” form at the website:
https://static.fsunews.com/contactus-form/
Here’s what I sent:
I’d like to respond to the article “Staying safe on Halloween as a college student.”
The reporter, Jacob Goeta, intentially misquoted a CBS article and claimed that “According to CBS News, sex offenders also tend to become more active on Halloween night.” That’s not what the article says.
The CBS article only states the following: “It’s bad enough if your garden gnome gets launched through your plate-glass window, but communities and police also worry about some really scary people. One New Jersey radio station names local sex offenders on its website. In Atlanta, police have knocked on the doors of all known felons to ensure they aren’t participating in the festivities.”
The CBS article does not mention actual statistics.
A 2009 research study found no spike of sex offenses during Halloween:
“This study found no significant increase in risk for non-familial child sexual abuse on or just prior to Halloween. Although sex offenders may use seemingly innocent opportunities to engage children and sexually abuse and therefore might be hypothesized to use trick-or-treat for ulterior purposes, this logic does not appear to translate into any actual unusual rate of sex offenses on Halloween. The absence of a Halloween effect remained constant over the 9-year period, beginning well before the current interest in Halloween sex offender policies and extending to recent years. Any Halloween policies that have been adopted by reporting jurisdictions during that period appear not to have affected the overall sex offense rate.
Halloween was also typical in terms of victim and offender characteristics, the types of child sex offenses reported, and the categories of victim–offender relationships involved. As with all other days of the year, young children are sexually victimized on Halloween. We do not suggest that there is no risk on Halloween or that anecdotal accounts of Halloween molestations should be dismissed. Nor do we suggest that parents should abandon caution and reasonable supervision of their children. But there does not appear to be need for alarm concerning sexual abuse on these particular days. In short, Halloween appears to be just another autumn day where rates of sex crimes against children are concerned. If anything, increased vigilance concerning risk should be directed to the summer months in general, where regular seasonal increases in rates are readily seen…
In this case, worries and good intentions might have inspired advocates and lawmakers to propose legislation that combats a nonexistent problem. The findings suggest that Halloween policies may in fact be targeting a new urban myth similar to past myths warning of tainted treats. The results are consistent with observations offered by law enforcement officials who do not describe any epidemic of trick-or-treaters being assaulted by known sex offenders and who have observed no unusual rate of child sexual assault events on Halloween.”
Children are three times more likely to be killed by a car on Halloween than any other time in the year, but to date, there are no laws restricting the use of cars during Halloween.
(Source: Mark Chaffin, Jill Levenson, Elizabeth Letourneau and Paul Stern. “How safe are trick-or-treaters? An analysis on sex crime rates on Halloween.” Sex Abuse 2009; 21; 363.)
There is not a unique threat from people listed on the “Sex Offense Registry.” Not every person listed on the Registry committed a violent rape or sexually abused a child. The public registry also lists teens who had consensual relations with classmates (statutory rape) or drunks who urinated behind dumpsters (indecent exposure). And over half of those listed on Florida’s government blacklist is not living in Florida communities.
Furthermore, not only are you far more likely to be victimized by someone you know and in your own home than by a stranger, most sex crime arrests are of people with no prior record, meaning that person will not be on the registry.
Having a fear of crime is NOT the same as having an actual increase in crime. Educate yourself by researching multiple sources instead of relying on a single resource, particularly a source that molds to your own cognitive biases. It is more important to BE safe than to just FEEL safe.
Thank you Derek.
I tried to send an email to the Editor In Chief and it bounced, saying it wasn’t a valid email address.
I am not understanding why Sunday evening both of mine went through but since then others are having theirs bounce back.
Thank you, Ryan, for trying.
Well, I am eating humble pie. I was deleting some emails when I discovered that FSUNews.com did bounce back my two emails sent to the editors Sunday night. So, I chose the Contact Us selection at the bottom of their homepage and copied my letter into the provided box. You do have to give a name and email address.
My guess is that college newspaper editorial staff turn over every school year, making it a challenge to identify the right individuals.
There was a suggestion that we aim even higher (parent publisher, college president), but higher-ups may be reluctant to intervene in college reporting.
You always do a good job of keeping our community informed. Thank you. I wonder if the email you are looking for is: jgoetz@tallahassee.com
I just sent my email to jgoetz@tallahassee.com. Now I wait to see if it is bounced back. Thanks.
It bounced back.