Stupid journalist tricks
Maybe the quest for sensationalism has finally gone too far:
There's really nothing more infuriating than some sanctimonious television reporter trying to play cop, or in this case, play with the cops and hospital authorities. Like they don't have better things to do.
And ah yes, if you're thinking about the First Amendment, which protects stupid speech, this incident is kind of like yelling fire in a crowded theater when there's no fire. So the reporter's Constitutional right to free speech and pursuit of the story might run headlong into the obligation not to engage in hoaxes and hide behind the First Amendment. There had to be a better way to get at the story.
Maybe they should all stick to chasing Internet perverts over chain link fences. Well, save it for sweeps month of course.
A television reporter who says she was doing an undercover investigation into security at hospital maternity wards was arrested after walking into a nursery with a large bag and asking questions about child abduction security.Ok, then. While it's fine to do a story on hospital security, where in the SPJ ethics manual does it say you can not identify yourself and act as if you are about to commit violent felonies? (I'd saying baby kidnapping is fairly violent even if nobody gets phsyically hurt, and it's certainly a felony.) And here's the explanation from management:
The arrest came a few weeks after a baby was snatched from a Lubbock hospital by a woman in hospital scrubs who allegedly hid the newborn in her purse.
Cecelia Lynn Coy-Jones, 33, a reporter for NBC affiliate KCBD-TV in Lubbock, was dressed in a similar way and carrying a large red bag when she entered Northwest Texas Hospital in Amarillo on Tuesday evening.
Dan Jackson, KCBD general manager, said the station was doing an undercover investigation to see what security measures hospitals and maternity wards were taking after "recent infant kidnappings in Lubbock by individuals posing as nurses."Let's hope there isn't a rash of bank robberies in that area.
There's really nothing more infuriating than some sanctimonious television reporter trying to play cop, or in this case, play with the cops and hospital authorities. Like they don't have better things to do.
And ah yes, if you're thinking about the First Amendment, which protects stupid speech, this incident is kind of like yelling fire in a crowded theater when there's no fire. So the reporter's Constitutional right to free speech and pursuit of the story might run headlong into the obligation not to engage in hoaxes and hide behind the First Amendment. There had to be a better way to get at the story.
Maybe they should all stick to chasing Internet perverts over chain link fences. Well, save it for sweeps month of course.
