Monday, September 12, 2016

Why the news sucks, example #60183

Seriously, what sort of moron do news agencies hire these days that can manage to do their jobs so poorly but still hold on to their job? Is the pool of applicants so shallow that anyone will do?

This example comes from USAToday. The headline is: Teen who impregnates teacher gets $6M from district

The story is credited to Micheal Harthorne, Newser Staff. I believe that after reading this story (what there is of it) you will agree that the headline and initial paragraph are a "miscarriage of justice".

If you don't have time to read it, the gist is "a former student who impregnated a California high-school teacher received a $6 million settlement from the school district". The male student was 17 at the time that he was raped by his teacher and she wound up getting pregnant.  A more appropriate heading might have been "Known child rapist get pregnant by latest victim, school district settles with victim for $6M".

Why is it in these types of stories (female teacher/student sex) the news tries to mitigate what the teacher has done? Does anyone think that they would be so "understanding" if the sexes of those involved were reversed?

Though they did not draw attention to it, at least they include enough information for the reader to understand that this teacher is a repeat offender. Story doesn't say if she will lose her teaching license.

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