A recent study done by Jay Rosen, for The Normal Lear Center, determined that local news broadcasts focus much more on crime, entertainment, and national news than they do on things like local government.
The study found that local news broadcasts devoted an average of 22 seconds of each broadcast to local government, but devoted almost 3 minutes to stories on crime. Not only that, but nearly 15 minutes of each 30 minute broadcast consisted of commercials and teasers.
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Anthony Stancl coereced male classmates into sending him nude photos, then used those photos to blackmail them into participating in sexual abuse
Anthony Stancl was a student at Eisenhower High School New Berlin, Wisconsin. He was considered a bit of a braggart, a bit of a jerk, who generally didn’t fit in well. He initially harassed and then made overtures to a known and popular gay, male student at the school, which brought him additional ridicule. He had a part-time job after school as an application developer and seemed to get along well with the adults there.
And on Facebook, he posed as a female Eisenhower student and tricked at least 31 young male students at the school into sending him naked images of themselves. He used those pictures to coerce 7 of the young men into performing sex-acts with him on camera. This was not discovered until he created a fake bomb threat, resulting in his computers being searched. (Read more details about this case here.)
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John Gardner is accused of killing Celsea King and suspected of killing Amber Dubois
John Gardner has been accused of the death of 17-year-old Chelsea King and suspected in the slaying of 14-year-old Amber Dubois, who disappeared early last year and whose body was recently recovered. What makes this case even more disturbing is that Gardner was a convicted sex offender who had already served a prison sentence for child molestation and imprisonment.
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Just a few months ago, the Honolulu PD announced that it was starting a new program aimed at shaming DUI offenders online, in hopes of dissuading other citizens from driving drunk. I wrote about the program last November as part of a series on the benefits and drawbacks of public shaming as a form of punishment and deterrent.
This week they announced that they had to stop the program. Although the police hoped it would act as a deterrent, defense lawyers claimed that posting weekly mugshots of recent DUI offenders to the department’s website was unfair to the defendants because their cases had yet to go to trial and they had not yet been found guilty of a crime. In other words, lawyers were claiming that the Honolulu PD’s program came a little too close to labeling suspects guilty before proven innocent.
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In a Web world that is saturated with sexual images, you may wonder: Is there anything I can do as a parent to protect my child from the dangers of pornography?
Dr. Michael Rich, the director of the Harvard Center on Media and Child Health, says we probably can’t shield our children from everything, but there are still very important things we can do.
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