11/3/05: Making up News Where there is None!!
We must start with the worst waste of a community resource: Channel 19 blurring action news. This is a one media outlet that can barely be called a news station. The tabloid news channel claims to be action news, which actually makes one dizzy watching the quick cuts and sentence fragments to communicate the blood, death, scandal, and sex going on in Cleveland. On Thursday November 3, Greater Cleveland and their favorite cub reporter Ed Gallek created a "news" story where none had originally existed. The big revelation that was teased throughout the night of prime time autopsies, game theory, kidnappings, and murders was that predators are sent into schools to VOTE!!! How is this possible? We were treated to women in cars saying that they this is "horrible." Our intrepid hero Ed Gallek looked at voting habits of 700 sex offenders and found that 160 had actually voted. Why was he standing at 11 p.m. in front of a Preston Elementary school "live?" Was the station hoping that one of these sex offenders would be camped at the polling place 5 days before election day waiting to vote? Why did he not mention that only 1 in 7 sexually based offenders were voting? It seems if more sexually based offenders were voting and they could organize themselves against yellow journalists.
Our champion, Gallek did his part for balance by interviewing a man who was on the list and actually put "Sexual Offender" below his name on the screen. Don't you wish this level of clarity in labeling could take place on a national level? Pictures of Bush would carry the label "emperor of the Greedy Empire" or John Kerry on the Senate floor would be labeled "Embarrassing Loser." Think how much better our daily diet of media if Tabloid Gallek were in charge of CBS News. Anyway, the man, Joseph Spicer, said that he did plan to vote on Tuesday. Why the station did not add the dramatic music when Spicer dropped this bombshell is beyond me? Missed opportunities. The underlying message was: "Pure evil is coming to your child's school on Tuesday. GET READY!!"
We already had an election in which only 16% of the population showed up do; we need more obstacles to voting? Without the sexually based offender database, Ed Gallek would have 50% fewer stories. What would he do with all that extra time? It is so easy to pick on these sexually based offenders who have served their time and now face the electronic equivalent of a scarlet letter. They have a hard time finding jobs or housing. They are an easy target. How about showing up at the house of the state legislators who enacted this reporting law demanding answers to what we are supposed to do with these guys now that we have branded them? Ohio allows felons who have served their time the opportunity to vote because they remain citizens. We do not allow absentee ballots at this time except in very specific exceptions (not including being a registered sex offender.) So what did Mr. Gallek expect? It is a wonder that Channel 19 regular viewers are not boarding up their houses and never venturing outside out of fear. This tabloid style and their repeated rants about how bad homeless people are is the reason that NEOCH has taken Channel 19 off our list of media contacts.
Brian
We must start with the worst waste of a community resource: Channel 19 blurring action news. This is a one media outlet that can barely be called a news station. The tabloid news channel claims to be action news, which actually makes one dizzy watching the quick cuts and sentence fragments to communicate the blood, death, scandal, and sex going on in Cleveland. On Thursday November 3, Greater Cleveland and their favorite cub reporter Ed Gallek created a "news" story where none had originally existed. The big revelation that was teased throughout the night of prime time autopsies, game theory, kidnappings, and murders was that predators are sent into schools to VOTE!!! How is this possible? We were treated to women in cars saying that they this is "horrible." Our intrepid hero Ed Gallek looked at voting habits of 700 sex offenders and found that 160 had actually voted. Why was he standing at 11 p.m. in front of a Preston Elementary school "live?" Was the station hoping that one of these sex offenders would be camped at the polling place 5 days before election day waiting to vote? Why did he not mention that only 1 in 7 sexually based offenders were voting? It seems if more sexually based offenders were voting and they could organize themselves against yellow journalists.
Our champion, Gallek did his part for balance by interviewing a man who was on the list and actually put "Sexual Offender" below his name on the screen. Don't you wish this level of clarity in labeling could take place on a national level? Pictures of Bush would carry the label "emperor of the Greedy Empire" or John Kerry on the Senate floor would be labeled "Embarrassing Loser." Think how much better our daily diet of media if Tabloid Gallek were in charge of CBS News. Anyway, the man, Joseph Spicer, said that he did plan to vote on Tuesday. Why the station did not add the dramatic music when Spicer dropped this bombshell is beyond me? Missed opportunities. The underlying message was: "Pure evil is coming to your child's school on Tuesday. GET READY!!"
We already had an election in which only 16% of the population showed up do; we need more obstacles to voting? Without the sexually based offender database, Ed Gallek would have 50% fewer stories. What would he do with all that extra time? It is so easy to pick on these sexually based offenders who have served their time and now face the electronic equivalent of a scarlet letter. They have a hard time finding jobs or housing. They are an easy target. How about showing up at the house of the state legislators who enacted this reporting law demanding answers to what we are supposed to do with these guys now that we have branded them? Ohio allows felons who have served their time the opportunity to vote because they remain citizens. We do not allow absentee ballots at this time except in very specific exceptions (not including being a registered sex offender.) So what did Mr. Gallek expect? It is a wonder that Channel 19 regular viewers are not boarding up their houses and never venturing outside out of fear. This tabloid style and their repeated rants about how bad homeless people are is the reason that NEOCH has taken Channel 19 off our list of media contacts.
Brian
posted by Homeless Grapevine at 11:20 AM
5 Comments:
Hey, we could pay a sex offender to say on the news "I'm voting Democrat again this year".
Seriously, I wonder who wins when the right to vote collides with the right to hype.
I can't believe you would bash Ed Gallek like that. Mr. Gallek placed himself in harm's way by reporting live from an area where sexual predators are allowed to occupy. At any moment, any one of those crazed degenerates could have assaulted him and his entire crew. He did this for us, so we could understand the danger inherent in voting. I know that even when voting I shouldn't let me guard down. I ask you, when did our country become like Iraq? Like the people of Iraq, all I want is a free democratic exchange of ideas, but now the very act of voting is being threatened by these sex fiends in much the same way terrorists threaten the poor citizens of Iraq. And, like those brave Iraqis, I for one will not shy away from my duty to freedom. Someday, the nation will realize that voting is too sacred of an act to be violated by these monsters. Until then, I'll keep one eye over my shoulder as I place my vote, but I will be there every voting day, rapist or no.
Two excellent comments. I like the slogan "Action News: The Right to Hype."
And, I never thought about risks of our hero Ed Gallek by standing outside of the darkened school.
Mr. Gallek needs to go all the way and do the same thing Wilma Smith did a few years ago during sweeps... fake being attacked. If he could work in being naked while waiting forty-five minutes for Cleveland Police to arrive, he could hit the Sweeps Month tri-fecta all in one story.
I say he does the sex story LIVE and TAKES ONE FOR THE TEAM! "Did you get that on tape?" our stalworth reporter asks.
"Mr. reporter, every night you come out to cover this story and get assaulted again and again by these perverts. It's like, um, no longer about informing the public anymore, is it?"
"Ok, see you tomorrow".
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