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We are calling this page, REALITY CHECK for one simple reason, we often need to have a reality check on just what is the effects of politician and media fear-mongering. Let us start with the media and then go on to the politicians. Background Information: The Media
We know that the scarier and more bizarre the story, the more likely it is that our bosses will give us more air time or a front-page slot. The scary story, justified or not, will get higher ratings and sell more papers. Fear sells. That's the reason for the insiders' joke about local newscasts: "If it bleeds, it leads." What about child abuse stories, again we will let Mr. Stossel speak from his web page: MYTH: "My teacher molested me." Kids wouldn't make up stuff like that! TRUTH: Yes, they would. This trendy media scare sent people to jail. Many were innocent of any crime, but they were convicted by the court of public opinion. The witnesses against them were children who testified to horrible events-events which, in many cases, never happened. But when the media express gets rolling, people get run over. One victim was Kelly Michaels, a New Jersey preschool teacher convicted in 1988 of molesting twenty children in bizarre and sadistic ways. She spent five years in prison before an appeals court ruled that prosecutors had planted suggestions in the minds of the children who testified against her. I don't blame the kids; I blame the prosecutors and the media. Reporters' imaginations and keyboards were fired up in 1983 by accusations of sodomy and satanic abuse at a California day-care center called the McMartin Preschool. The woman who started the barrage of charges was later discovered to be a paranoid schizophrenic. Her claims of devil-worship and sadism were outlandish on their face, but never mind: It was "good copy." Headlines blared, prosecutors roared, and seven people were charged in a total of 135 criminal counts. It was nonsense. But the defendants had their lives ruined. The case against them was cooked up by therapists and social workers who planted suggestions in the minds of impressionable children, who then told horrendous tales to prosecutors. The prosecutors also listened to the drumbeats of the media, which stirred a different witches' brew for every news cycle. Kids are highly impressionable. We know that, but psychology professor Stephen Ceci proved it in a study at Cornell University. He told me, "We are now discovering that if you put kids who were not abused through the same kind of highly leading, repetitive interview, some of those children will disclose events that seem credible but, in fact, are not borne out in actuality." Ceci set up an experiment where he and his researchers asked kids silly questions like: RESEARCHER Have you ever had your finger caught in a mousetrap and had to go to the hospital? GIRL No. RESEARCHER No? At first, the kids say no. Then, once a week for the next 10 weeks, the researchers ask the question again. RESEARCHER You went to the hospital because your finger got caught in a mousetrap? BOY And it- RESEARCHER Did that happen? BOY Uh-huh. By week four or six or ten, about half of the kids say, "Yes, it happened." Many give such precise information that you'd think it must have happened. RESEARCHER Did it hurt? BOY Yeah. RESEARCHER Yeah? Who took you to the hospital? BOY My daddy, my mommy, my brother. RESEARCHER Where in your house is the mousetrap? BOY It's down in the basement. RESEARCHER What is it next to in the basement? BOY It's next to the firewood. By the time I met that boy, weeks after the experiment was over, he still "remembered" convincing details about things that never happened. STOSSEL Was there a time when you got your finger caught in a mousetrap and had to go to the hospital? BOY Uh-huh. STOSSEL Who went with you to the hospital? BOY My mom and my dad and my brother Colin, but not the baby. He was in my mom's tummy. What he told me was even more remarkable because just a few days before, his father discussed the experiment with him, explained that it was just a test, and that the mousetrap event never happened. The boy agreed-it was just in his imagination. But when he talked to me, the boy denied the conversation with his father, and insisted the mousetrap story was true. STOSSEL Did your father tell you something about the mousetrap finger story? BOY No. STOSSEL Is it true? Did it really happen? BOY It wasn't a story. It really happened. STOSSEL This really happened? You really got your finger caught? This really happened? BOY Yeah. Why would the boy lie to me? I said to Professor Ceci that I assumed he wasn't intentionally making up the story. Ceci said, "I think they've come to believe it. It is part of their belief system." Some molestation "experts" thought they'd come closer to the truth by giving kids anatomically correct dolls. With dolls, the social workers wouldn't have to ask so many questions. They could just say, "Imagine you are the doll; what did the teacher touch?" Lawyers argued that kids "wouldn't make up" what had been done to the doll. But Ceci's colleague Dr. Maggie Bruck conducted tests that showed that they would. Bruck had a pediatrician add some extra steps to his routine physical examination. He measured the child's wrists with a ribbon, he put a little label on the child's stomach, and he tickled the child's foot with a stick. Never did the doctor go anywhere near the child's private parts. Then, a few days after the exam, using an anatomically correct doll, Bruck and the child's father asked leading questions about the doctor's exam. We caught it on tape. FATHER So what did he do? GIRL He put a stick in my vagina. FATHER He put a stick in your vagina? GIRL Yeah. [Then the girl claimed the doctor hammered the stick into her vagina. And she said the doctor examined her rectum.] DR. BRUCk He was where? GIRL In my hiney. None of it was true. But when dolls were used, half the kids who'd never had their private parts touched claimed the doctor touched them. The tests made Dr. Bruck question her prior faith in the testimony of children. She told me she thinks dozens of innocent people are in jail. Dr. Ceci told me their leading questions were mild compared to what the investigators asked: "What we do . . . doesn't come close, for example, to what was done in the Kelly Michaels case." The appellate court decision that set Kelly Michaels free garnered just a smidgeon of the media attention her trial and conviction got. After she was freed, she told me about her nightmare. MS. MICHAELS One day you're getting ready for work and making coffee, minding your business, trying to get along as best you can, being a reasonable, decent, honorable citizen, and the next minute you are an accused child molester with the most bizarre - I'd never even heard of such things even being done. STOSSEL They say you inserted objects, including Lego
blocks, forks, spoons, serrated knives into their anuses, vaginas, penises- MS.
MICHAELS And a sword. It was in there. http://abcnews.go.com/2020/print?id=1898820
Reality Check: In the effort to increase readership or viewers, improve ratings and the bottom line, the media is in FACT making children less safe. We will say this again, so there is no mistake as to our position on this subject. In the effort to increase readership or viewers, improve ratings and the bottom line, the media is in FACT making children less safe. How is it that surveys showed most teen-agers are more afraid of the "imagined boogie-man" hiding in the bushes, than real dangers that could kill them, like riding in a car with a friend who is driving drunk. Because of media myths and misinformation, fear-mongering, sensationalizing and trying the accused in the court of public opinion, the media has contributed significantly to children being less safe. The simple fact is that children are more likely to be abused by a family member, a friend of the family, a trusted clergy member, or someone trusted by the child, like a teacher, or coach; than by a stranger. By focusing our children's fears on imaginary dangers, we are leading them to believe the real dangers cannot hurt them. How is this making children safer? Even a recent FBI report stated the problems with media myths and fear-mongering. However, it seems that corporate profits and Neilsen Ratings are more important in the boardrooms and management offices of today media outlets, than the safety of children. The media continues their misguided concept of interchangeably using words like "sex offender", "child molester", "pedophile", and "predator". These are yet another way they are making children less safe. A "sex offender "can be
anyone who committed an offense, that state and now some federal laws, determine
to be "sexual in nature". This includes, urinating in public, mooning someone,
consensual sex between teen-agers. A "pedophile" is someone who
is attracted to a pre-pubescent child. Someone who has an attraction to a
teen-ager is an Ephebophile, and it is not considered the same as pedophilia, by
psychologists, unless it interferes with attraction to adults. Labeling all sex
offenders as a "pedophile" misinforms parents and children, making the child
less safe. Why would the media do all this? Follow the money trail and it will lead people with the most average of intelligence, to the same conclusion we draw here. FEAR SELLS. THINK ABOUT THIS: This is the image the media wants you to have when you hear the word "sex offender".
Here is the REALITY of the matter. NOT ALL SEX
OFFENDERS ARE CHILD ABUSERS, SO IS YOUR CHILD REALLY SAFE by portraying this
image to them? The FBI does not think so, Psychologist and other experts do not
think so. Only media personalities like Nancy Grace, Glen Beck, Bill O'Reilly,
or Chris Hansen think so!
Background Information: Politicians Politicians around the country at the state and local level are tripping over themselves to write harsher sex offender laws. The mindset is not in my town. They are using myths and misinformation and power words, like "sex offender", "child molester", "pedophile", and "predator", to scare constituents and appear tough on crime. Gone from the debate is our constitutional protections, such as the procedural component of the 14th Amendment.
Reality Check: Let’s consider the merits of
our current state and national sex offender registry system, along with all
state and local proximity (safety zone) laws. It is a win-win game for them. They appear to be doing something about a media engineered problem, and can use this to raise funds for election and re-election. At the end of the day, they, like the media are the real winners, not the children.
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Copyright © 2006 SOSNet Legal Notice: The information on this web site based on hundreds of hours of research, however is NOT intended to be used as legal advice. If you are being investigated, or accused of crime against a child, seek the help of a licensed attorney, who specializes in child abuse cases, from your State Bar Association today. General practice attorneys do not have the skills to represent you in these types of cases and by delaying contacting a competent attorney; you will be placing yourself and your family in jeopardy.
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bravenet.com
In his
book, Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity, ABC reporter John Stossel
tells us about "truths often distorted — or disregarded — by the media".
Mr. Stossel speaks to this on the his ABC News web page:
