Cap’n Ken’s Homespun Wisdom

Now that Fox 5 has run its “clarification” about the Atlanta homicide story during the newscasts that ran the reports I”ve seen, I can confirm that they are lying about what they originally reported, which is pathetic, but not entirely surprising.

In the clarification (this one is from 10 p.m. last night - the script was the same in both newscasts this morning, but read without the smooth skill of Russ Spencer), Fox 5 states:

“We want to clarify a report we aired yesterday. We reported that FBI statistics showed a dramatic increase in homicides in 2006 in Atlanta”s Zone 6 precinct, which includes much of the eastern part of the city. Now during that report, we showed video of locations in East Atlanta Village, and in fact there were no homicides in East Atlanta Village in 2006. We regret the false impression caused by that videotape.”

That is an absolute lie. Fox 5 did not report a dramatic increase in homicides in Zone 6. Fox 5 reported a dramatic increase in homicides in “east Atlanta.”

Specifically, they reported:

“The increase has been seen citywide, but nowhere has the jump been as dramatic as in east Atlanta, where in 2005 they had 6 murders; last year 15, a 150% spike.” - this was in their report that aired at about 5:30 a.m. yesterday. The “as dramatic as east Atlanta” line was accompanied by a shot of the “Welcome to East Atlanta” sign.

And:

“The murder rate is up all over the city, but especially in east Atlanta, which had 6 murders in 2005 and 15 last year, a 150% increase.” - this was in their report that aired at about 6:30 a.m. yesterday, and the report generally was toned down to focus less on East Atlanta.

“Zone 6″ was never mentioned.

Fox 5 reported that homicides were up dramatically in East Atlanta. They want to dance around what they reported and pretend this was simply a matter of poorly-placed video. But they clearly associated these murders with the East Atlanta neighborhood (not some vague notion of “the east part of Atlanta”) by never mentioning any area other than “east Atlanta” and showing our “Welcome to East Atlanta” as they said murders were up in “east Atlanta”.

Yet they are unwilling to admit their mistake and fully own up to the damage they inflicted on the neighborhood”s reputation. Instead we get sugar-coated revisionist history intended to make Fox 5 look less at fault than they actually were.

Apparently Fox 5 is more interested in protecting its own reputation than they are in damage they inflict on East Atlanta”s reputation.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 6th, 2007 at 9:29 am and is filed under Atlanta, East Atlanta, Media & Things. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.