12500 N.E. Tenth Place • Bellevue, WA 98005 • JPFO.org • 800-869-1884 • info@jpfo.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE • October 28, 2018 • Contact Floyd Neeland
Pittsburgh Atrocities Are MURDERS--Not "Shootings"
Don't Inspire Evil:
STOP PROMOTING THE MURDER SUSPECT'S FACE!
JPFO says mass media makes multiple ethical mistakes
in coverage of Oct. 27 Pittsburgh synagogue murders
Showing suspect's face all day isn't news, it's awful
Reporters contribute directly to lack of faith
public now has in journalism, JPFO asserts
Loss of confidence and audience size no accident
Countless ethical and substantive errors flood the mass-media reports covering the multiple murders at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. These are being perpetuated by cable news and the major outlets without even a hint of concern or even awareness. The murders, the worst crime possible, are being called "shootings," an imprecise term that coincidentally describes America's second most popular participant sport, which reporters detest and otherwise basically censor.
Raising the issue of so-called "hate crime," which reporters are already doing before motive or any substantive details are known is a gross journalistic error. Worse, it invokes an Orwellian deception with no place in a real report. Murder and assault do not get worse if the perpetrator loved, hated or cared nothing for the victim. Journalists know this, or should. The harm done in an attack is the key to proper justice. Thought crime is the stuff of novels, not a free republic.
In weeks and months to come we can expect corrupt and ethics-free media to turn this suspect's face into another anti-hero icon, as they have done so many times before. Giving an accused mass murderer worldwide notoriety adds nothing to the news cycle, debases our culture, encourages copycats, horrifies news consumers, frightens children, doesn't even sell more papers as it once did and ignores the bedrock principle of innocent until proven guilty. Remember what happened to Richard Jewell. It's time for companies everywhere to adopt JPFO's Don't Inspire Evil initiative and:
"Refrain from gratuitous or repetitious portrayal
of mass murderers' names and images."
http://jpfo.org/d.i.e/die-homepage.htm
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P.S. We suspect the "news" will be playing this up for a long time; showing the picture of the suspect until the person is a national icon, you think? If it's life you cherish, note that more than 80 people died on our roads today. And yesterday, and will tomorrow. Media provides a hopelessly distorted sense of reality.
Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, http://www.jpfo.org is America’s most aggressive civil-rights organization, dedicated to destroying the notion of “gun control” as any kind of credible public-policy position. So-called “gun control” does not control guns and doesn’t control criminal behavior. What it does do is disarm the innocent, leaving them helpless in the face of criminals, tyrannical governments and genocide. History repeatedly proves this fact. Founded in 1989 by Aaron Zelman as a response to the Holocaust, JPFO speaks with the moral authority and tenacious commitment of survivors of persecution, and knows that surrendering your personal and family safety to government protection courts disaster. “You don’t have to be Jewish to fight by our side, you just have to love liberty.”
