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Thursday, February 23, 2012

Random, unusual deaths and violent crimes in the news

From Fox News this morning, one of their top four stories on the web:


So, some BAD parents make a child run, in ALABAMA, and that child dies. Should this story matter to me in North Carolina (or even if I lived in Alabama for that matter)?

The girl, Savannah Hardin, was a third-grader at Carlisle Elementary School. Superintendent Alan Cosby said: "This is obviously a very tragic, devastating, heartbreaking situation," Cosby said. "Nothing like this has ever happened before."

Which is why it is news!

Notice what Fox did below that story too. It linked the story to an accidental school shooting in Seattle and the trial outcome of the UVA Lacrosse player who murdered his ex-girlfriend.

this fits in nicely with facts of media coverage of crime laid out in the book.

2 comments:

  1. This is the perfect example of what we were talking about in class, the narrative the media loves to portray for crime - the victim is always a young white innocent girl. I am interested to see how many other little girls died yesterday and the circumstances of their deaths, I'm sure there were several who died in just as horrifying circumstances as this little girl, but they received no press coverage because they were probably a minority. You're right though, if I live in NC, why should I be told about this little girl's death in Alabama? Let the little girl's community grieve, nothing good can come out of telling the whole nation about her death. The stepmother and grandmother will probably receive death threats now, and complete strangers will try and thrust themselves into the funeral ceremonies of the little girl, all to get attention.
    Another thing I wanted to point out - in lieu of a young, poor, black man committing the crime that killed this girl, the media seemed content to settle upon, at least what looks like to me, old, poor, white "trailer trash." I think the media is finally starting to diversify their coverage!

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