Bad Journalism

The problem with going into the major I have is that I now analyze and observe everything and make some type of critique about it. Today I read an article titled, "Family: New Jersey Man Serving 7 Years for Guns He Owned Legally."

If you read through the article, it never actually says he's serving 7 years for gun possession. He's serving 7 years on "weapons charges" and "having 'large capacity' magazines and hollow-point bullets." This journalist obviously is an advocate of not having gun control laws that he's willing to put his own twist on the story and making it seem that he's serving a sentence for something he's doing legally. He did do something illegally and it's those things that he's serving for.

I'm sure the journalist is also looking for a headline that puts things in such an extreme light that people will actually read it. If it had read "Family: New Jersey Man Serving 7 Years for Illegal Possession of 'Large Capacity' Magazines and Hollow-point Bullets," nobody would have batted an eye outside of the NRA.

Another concern I have involves the irrelevance of the judges ruling in another case that the circumstances border on absurd. How in the world does a police officer sticking his penis in five calves' mouths matter? All you are doing by mentioning this is trying to demean those who attempt to uphold the law by police and judges in your attempt to give credance to your view that law is bad in this case.

Then there's the information that he didn't provide, such as how the police were able to search his vehicle. Did they have a warrant or did he give them permission to search it? If she called 911 after he left, and the police traced the call, they would have stopped by the mother's house, not the son driving to wherever he was going. There's too much incomplete information to make an informed guess on what actually happened and how it should be interpreted.

I do wish journalism would be more objective and complete and allow individuals to come up with their own interpretation of the events that happen rather than just trying to feed us their view.