Justice at Last?
After all this time -- an arrest is made in the 1996 murder of JonBenet Ramsey.
The Rocky Mountain News reports that the suspect, being held in Thailand, is a 41-year-old onetime second-grade teacher from Conyers, Georgia:
"[A] source said that authorities had been focusing on him for some time and that Patsy Ramsey had been made aware prior to her death on June 24 that his arrest was being pursued.
"Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacy today confirmed the arrest,without naming the suspect. She said it followed several months of a focused and complex investigation. 'John and Patsy Ramsey both were consulted during the course of the investigation,' Lacy said in a brief press release this afternoon."
Regardless of what ultimately happens in this case, it is heartbreaking that the girl's mother, Patsy Ramsey, died with millions of people still convinced that she was somehow involved in the beating and stangulation death of her own child.
The media-saturated lynching of John and Patsy Ramsey will forever be a testament to the most ugly impulses of a news media that values speed and sensation above credibility, a news media moving far too quickly to worry about the repercussions of what they do.
The list of those wronged by the media is extensive -- Richard Jewell, Gary Condit and Raymond Donovan are but a few who leap to mind -- but there is a special place in Yellow Journalism Hell for those who excoriated the Ramseys without shame or reservation.
posted by Chase McInerney @ 5:01 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Amen to that, brother.
Wonder if those same sensationalist "reporters" will now be falling all over themselves with the fawning retrospectives about Patsy - actually I don't need to wonder, I'm sure they're already doing it even as I type this comment.
I wonder what this also says about A) The evil sex industry in Thailand B) The worldwide child porn industry.
You know the likelihood this suspect is wrapped up in that demonic underground is very high. And he was a second grade teacher!
While I certainly feel bad about the wrongly accused (and hope this vindication is some balm for those decade-old wounds), I am always surprised how quickly "the media" is blamed for things like this.
Yes, some commentators stepped over the line. No doubt there. They do it all the time on lots of subjects.
But let's not forget that 1) Most reporters spend their days covering the mundane but important news that people need but seldom talk about, and 2) Reporters cover what comes from sources. Not commentators, but reporters. And there was a time when the police were looking closely at JonBenet's parents, which members of the media were told, which they reported.
Am I biased for the media? Yeah. But you know that. I'm just pointing out that not all of us are yellow scum sensationalists.
I mean, I am, but not everybody else.
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