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snarpI wish there were just one news outlet with a firm policy against running extreme close-ups of people's crying faces after a tragedy, or hassling them into interviews when they're not thinking clearly. Private grief should not be treated as entertainment.
Same with interviewing the perpetrators' families and close friends when they run out of actual news to report. Some of the Boston killers' family members are behaving badly, yeah, but these people are not suspects, and they're probably not competent to make good decisions right now. Giving them a live platform like this could put them in danger of retaliatory violence. Even if you're the kind of creep who's cool with that, I hope you don't want to put the cops through the shit it entails.
Airing the uncle's remark that they were "losers," and then his demand that the remaining guy turn himself in? Yeah, putting shit like that out where the paranoid world-hating shithead might see it is going to make him put down his gun. Fuck whoever decided to run that. I wonder what the cops and national guard on the ground thought about that strategically brilliant maneuver.
The dad and aunt's insistence that they must have been framed and anger towards the cops is a pretty normal reaction, in my experience - especially given that one of the guys has been killed now, and the dad is certainly grieving and angry. Criminals' family members are often less rational than the criminals themselves in terms of stuff like plea bargains. The criminal usually knows s/he's guilty as fuck, but try telling that to his/her mom and dad.
And sure, sometimes this is because the family members feel implicated or responsible, and will convince themselves of any story that makes them feel less so. In the case of a parent/guardian, sometimes it's even because they're paranoid world-hating shitheads themselves, and their kids learned that from them.
But sometimes it's just because they're very loyal and not very astute about emotional stuff. They can't imagine that someone they love would do a thing like this, so they don't believe it, no matter how overwhelming the evidence.
Same with interviewing the perpetrators' families and close friends when they run out of actual news to report. Some of the Boston killers' family members are behaving badly, yeah, but these people are not suspects, and they're probably not competent to make good decisions right now. Giving them a live platform like this could put them in danger of retaliatory violence. Even if you're the kind of creep who's cool with that, I hope you don't want to put the cops through the shit it entails.
Airing the uncle's remark that they were "losers," and then his demand that the remaining guy turn himself in? Yeah, putting shit like that out where the paranoid world-hating shithead might see it is going to make him put down his gun. Fuck whoever decided to run that. I wonder what the cops and national guard on the ground thought about that strategically brilliant maneuver.
The dad and aunt's insistence that they must have been framed and anger towards the cops is a pretty normal reaction, in my experience - especially given that one of the guys has been killed now, and the dad is certainly grieving and angry. Criminals' family members are often less rational than the criminals themselves in terms of stuff like plea bargains. The criminal usually knows s/he's guilty as fuck, but try telling that to his/her mom and dad.
And sure, sometimes this is because the family members feel implicated or responsible, and will convince themselves of any story that makes them feel less so. In the case of a parent/guardian, sometimes it's even because they're paranoid world-hating shitheads themselves, and their kids learned that from them.
But sometimes it's just because they're very loyal and not very astute about emotional stuff. They can't imagine that someone they love would do a thing like this, so they don't believe it, no matter how overwhelming the evidence.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-20 06:58 am (UTC)Co-signed. This is a good post.