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Dear Jack Williams: Please wipe that smug smirk off your face
By adamg on Sat, 11/03/2007 - 2:43pm
Last night, at the end of the 11 o'clock newscast, Jack Williams answered viewer e-mail. One was from a woman who wondered why the TV crews went berserk covering that Needham murder but don't seem to show a similar amount of urgency in covering murders in inner-city Boston.
Williams, in that stentorian voice of his, said Channel 4 went into Crisis Emergency Mode because Needham schools were locked down and the station will always play up any story involving a possible public-safety issue.
So here's the lesson for Boston schools: Next time you go into lockdown because some murderer is on the loose, make sure to call Jack Williams. Remember the pizza guy who got shot in Dorchester on Thursday? Turns out
Dorchester High School was locked down after that, only nobody thought to inform Channel 4, probably because, unfortunately, they have a lot more experience in dealing with murders and lockdowns than bucolic little Needham. But I'm wondering even if they had alerted the media if it would have mattered.
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Comments
It's not rocket science
Man Bites Dog is always going to get more attention than Dog Bites Man.
Ayup
But Mr. Stentorian Voice doesn't need to get all huffy and superior about it.
My comment was directed at the e-mailer
Not your annoyance w.r.t. Jack Williams.
Not mentioned - they focus
Not mentioned - they focus on the "locked-down school", when the crime had nothing to do with the school. It was strictly a precaution they take out of paranoia these days, and really had nothing to do with the crime story they should have been covering.
They focus on the school for the same reason they lead every other promo with the scary "Are your children safe on the school bus?" or "Are your children safe in the playground?" stories. They want to get the women viewers who do the spending in the families. Local television today is targeted today almost totally on middle-class women, with skin care "special reports" and mommy-paranoia.
chip on your shoulder?
I think you're projecting your personal bias against middle class women onto a story which has nothing to do with it. The media coverage was more intense for the Needham incident because shootings are less frequent there as compared to Dorchester. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that one out.
Crime spree in Needham
Oh my , at the same time a local store was being help up in Needham as well. Nobody was hurt there but Needham appears not to be the sleepy little town it once was.
Of course, violent crimes occurring in poor urban areas don't
Violent crimes, especially of that nature, that occur in an urban area, as opposed to a suburban one, very seldom, if ever, receive the attention they're deserved. Of course, when it occurs in the suburbs, such as Needham or Columbiine, there's a bigger outdry over it, because of their much higher post
you are a fool. there is an
you are a fool. there is an "outcry" in Columbine because two students meticulously massacred their classmates in cold blood. why would you compare the two?
Every day local newscasts
Every day local newscasts report violent crimes in Dorchester and Roxbury. Do you follow local news? Doesn't seem so.
Not the point
Yes, the local TV stations report crime in the inner city (if only because the Globe now covers it, too). But they don't go into Full Scale End of World Mode and send out the Action News Sky Eye Copters to Dorchester murders - even when schools there are locked down - like they did with the Needham case.