Crime and the Media

Why is it that when someone attempts to kill a famous person or actually carries it out, the media always uses the killer’s first, middle, and last names? John Wilkes Booth (Lincoln), Lee Harvey Oswald (Kennedy), James Earl Ray (MLK), Mark David Chapman (John Lennon), the list goes on and on. John Booth wouldn’t have sufficed? James Ray is not good enough? How about the news media when reporting even a local crime. They always seem to dig up the worst possible photo of the accused and stick it in that box behind the anchor’s head while they tell the story. It’s NEVER a nice photo of a day at the beach, a picnic, or a Sears Portrait Studio photo. It’s always a photo from 1989 in MC Hammer pants, a picture after a night of boozing, or a picture after mowing a 5 acre lawn. Then after the accused is arrested and brought to the jail, they always like to think they are fooling us by putting a coat over their head to conceal their identity from the media. I mean the first, middle, and last name along with the address and picture the news person just reported won’t blow your cover. That Puma sweatshirt is definitely keeping it your little secret. I like when the reporters go into a neighborhood and interview the neighbors of an accused person. They always say…”he was so quiet” or “he kept to himself, I am shocked”. “What a nice man he was, a real family man”. He kept to himself because he was plotting the crime the last six months, not because he was nice!!!!!!!!! Neighbors are always stunned when something happens on their block too. The news always seems to find the 95 year old man who says he’s lived there for 78 years and he’s never seen anything like it on that block. So look out if you live on a block where it’s been quiet for 80 years, there’s a quiet, hard working, family man who keeps to himself , and where your neighbor calls himself by his first, middle, and last name.