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Thursday, July 2, 2009

DeMocker remains in jail awaiting trial on one-year anniversary of Carol Kennedy's death

Something about this piece smells bad to me. First I notice that other than marking the anniversary of the widely beloved teacher's death, there is no actual news here. We get the all the news value from the ridiculously long headline. Nothing's happened, there's no new information. Then there's the defense attorney making assertions about the evidence or lack of it, while the prosecutors must follow the straight and narrow path and refrain from comment. I have to wonder whether the defense isn't playing the Courier for a mistrial. In any case it looks like a poor use of column inches.
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2 comments:

  1. ShellyJuly 8, 2009 at 7:13 AM

    Isn't a significant percentage of news like that (repeating news that's already been told & repeated). That's been my experience of every article about Carol. I'll never forget the endless repetitions of the same images in the weeks following 9-11.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Steven AyresJuly 8, 2009 at 7:46 AM

    It's true there are certain sensational stories that the media like to repackage and resell, because they can and because the TV news cycle is a hungry beast that needs feeding. I think in this case there was some motivation for writing up this rehash, probably a phone or email contact with DeMocker's defense team, which has an interest in keeping the story warm. My question would be who made the call, the Courier reporter, or the lawyer?

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