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By now you have probably seen the viral video of the Channel 2 reporter outside ORMC Wednesday night who was crying in sorrow after a reporter was murdered.
While I have total sympathy for her, and even more for the slain and their families, these events in real time, with real people, in our community, are in part a result of a paradigm shift in the media.
When the media reports the headline and not the story there is a cost to society. The headline is a narrative spun as fact. Truth becomes opinion. The story becomes lost.
The headline is that a 19-year-old killed a journalist. The story is that the killer had a violent gun crime history, and was free to kill because, in the words of DA Monique Worrell, all his previous crimes were as a juvenile- like that makes the crime and the effect on the victims and community any less severe. He, like so many repeat offenders who graduate to even bigger crimes, should have never been on the streets, a product of far left soft on crime policies.
The headline is among the dead is a 9-year-old. The story is that there is a cultural rot that has taken God out of the schools, de-emphasized the nuclear family, taken traditional values out of the culture, and criminal justice has been replaced by social justice, to the detriment of our youth.
The headline is that a former public defender won an election for DA. The story is that the last two prosecutors in that district were bankrolled by George Soros and that has made the district far less safe.
The headline is that Governor Scott removed Aramis Ayala from capital cases in an ideological disagreement. The story is that Ayala didn't follow policy.
The headline is that the Demings are an upwardly mobile, ex-cop, political power couple. The story is that things have deteriorated under their watch and she was thoroughly rebuked at the state level this past November.
The headline is that W-O-K-E Channel 2 cancelled a televised debate because of Covid policies.
The story is that the voters were robbed of the chance to see rising conservative star Scotty Moore compared head-to-head against a far left back bencher who owes his seat to demographics and demagoguery.
With the power of reach and influence comes the responsibility of thoroughness and truth. It is why the founders gave us freedom of the press.
Maybe this will be a watershed moment for local news, and they will reflect and start reporting the story instead of the headlines. It should be. It is their civic duty.
But what is more likely is that tears will be shed, tributes will be given, words will be spoken, the dead will be buried, and the media circus will move on. It is why the late Rush Limbaugh called them the "drive by media."
Pray for the fallen, and for their families, but also pray for reflection and change, and pray for a return to God and the truth, because that is where the answer truly lies.
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