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Showing posts with label leading stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label leading stories. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Stay focused on the trivial ...

I've been reading and writing a lot about major corporate crimes and deviance. Things like defective products (which kill about 20,000 Americans every year), hazardous working conditions under companies like BP and Massey Energy (who have repeatedly killed their own employees), and Wall Street and banking fraud (which caused the collapse of the US economy).

There is a lot of information out there in the media on these crimes. And by "the media" I mean the websites of independent news organizations.

But in the mainstream press, these are some of the leading stories.

From CNN:
Passengers scramble to the decks after a 2:50 a.m. alarm warns of a fire on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship heading to the Bahamas. FULL STORY

 
From Fox:
 
 
 
From USA TODAY:
 
 
These are each examples of "trivial stories" or news.
 
Why do such stories appear in the news, along with others about a little kid being bitten by sharks off the waters in Florida?
 
And why don't more serious stories, including those that kill and injure us and wreck our economy, don't make it?

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Top stories in leading newspapers today

From the New York Times

 S.E.C. Is Asked to Require Disclosure of Donations

The Securities and Exchange Commission may soon make publicly traded corporations disclose all of their political donations, and business groups are already preparing a counterattack.
News Analysis

Unraveling Boston Suspects’ Online Lives, Link by Link

Once the search for the marathon bombing suspects focused on Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the brothers’ social media postings provided a rich vein of material to mine.

Boston Suspects Are Seen as Self-Taught and Fueled by Web

Investigators’ early portrait of the two brothers accused in the marathon bombings suggests they were driven by extremist Islamic beliefs and may have learned to build bombs on the Web.
Senators See Problems in Agencies’ Data Sharing


From the Washington Post



FBI searches home of another man in ricin case

Authorities dismiss charges against Mississippi man in case of poison-laced letters sent to lawmakers and are now investigating a second man.

Bombing suspects appear to lack ties to foreign terrorists

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev said the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan inspired him and his brother to attack, officials say.
Baltimore City Detention Center’s guards are accused of aiding a gang. (Post)

‘The inmates literally took over’

13 female guards are accused of aiding gang’s criminal efforts in case that also alleges sex with inmates and access to fancy cars.

Collapse of building housing garment factories kills at least 87 in Bangladesh

Collapse of building housing garment factories kills at least 87 in Bangladesh
The collapse stirred memories of a fatal fire at a garment factory in November that killed 112 people.

Why Americans aren’t mad as hell about failure of the gun bill

Why Americans aren’t mad as hell about failure of the gun bill THE FIX | Post-Pew poll suggests that Senate vote reflected how people generally feel about guns.

______________________________________________________

These are the top stories from two leading--inner ring or first tier--newspapers.

What do you notice about them?

Terrorism, Terrorism, Terrorism, criminal justice, guns ...

AND ....

two stories about possible crimes committed by the powerful.

Now check CNN and Fox News and see if those stories are there as well.

Probably not.