Prepare for Harshness

Courtesy of FBI

One of the things we have talked about in class is how new media, in particular the Internet, has brought down the quality of reporting as a whole. The speed at which news moves on the web has a direct effect on the quality of writing that consumers read every day. On Yahoo today, Brett Dykes wrote about a FBI press release asking the public for help in decoding encrypted letters. These letters are clues in an unsolved murder case that happened back in June of 1999. The FBI is looking for a fresh set of eyes (public) to take a look at the notes and are encouraged to see what they can come up with. Dykes does a good job making this clear in his writing. However, Dykes fails to leave out an important piece of information that would perhaps hinder the public's ability to help with the case. In the FBI release, it is clear that the encrypted notes were written by the victim, suspected to be written several days before his death. In Dykes article, he fails to clarify that fact to mine and others' frustration. This is the type of article that could have some interesting comments attached to it. Reading the comments it was clear that many of the readers thought the encryptions were written by the murderer, not the victim. This steers many people in the wrong direction and actually hinders the FBI's attempt to get help from the public. When I first read the article I was under the same impression until reading the FBI press release. This is a great example of the fact checking that is available to us, but it is shows that there is lazy/careless mistakes that come with the vast sources of news outlets there are today. I commented twice warning of this error, but they both have since been deleted. Interested to see who controls reader commenting...