Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Terrible stories, difference in reporting

So here we have two stories:


Just to compare:

  1. Title:  It's alleged that the mother daughter story is actually a murder suicide, but the news headline is 'found dead'.  The other article is about a violent husband.
  2. Detail:  The first article doesn't mention details at all about what state the mother and daughter were in, so we don't know how the mother killed the child and then herself.  The second article clearly uses the words "murder" several times and reports about "stabbing multiple times".

I'm not looking to demonize women here, but the news clearly covers up or glosses over details when the perpetrator is female and sensationalizes details when the perpetrator is male.

Just like the case of that mother who killed six children: we don't know the names of ANY of the fathers of her children who lost their children, yet we know Rosie Batty's name even though she only lost one son.  We all know Luke Batty's name after his father allegedly killed him, yet we don't know the names of a single one of the children murdered by their mother.

This is why real news should include 100% of the details.  If you're only reporting 20% of the details because of the gender of the offender, then you're the fruit drink of news: a watered down substitute.

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