25 outubro 2002

VITAMEDIAS
Media played key role in sniper hunt: Early in the serial sniper investigation, police unsuccessfully tried to tightly control the media, pleading that they stop reporting information not officially released. Before long, investigators realized they needed the media and began using news outlets to communicate with the killer. And in the end, through aggressive reporting and unusual cooperation with authorities, the media played a significant role in the capture of the two suspects.
'Cable networks have reached a new low': Covering the sniper is akin to covering a war. The press has a responsibility not to reveal tactics and troop movements, or compromise public safety. News channel coverage essentially gave the killers a free education in police procedure, and it was shamefully irresponsible," said Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism.
Some beg to differ.
With the Sniper, TV Profilers Missed Their Mark [Fenómeno Maya]
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
It wasn't, apparently, the work of al Qaeda operatives. It wasn't an angry young white man working alone. It wasn't someone who lived in Montgomery County.
Almost everything the sniper "profilers" and pundits told the media over the past three weeks turns out to have been off the mark, considering the very real profiles of the two people arrested early yesterday. The men and women who had been described on the air and in print as "forensic psychologists" and "former FBI investigators" took many swings at the who and why of the sniper case - and mostly missed.