A Response To: Are Your Kids Safe?
Friday, May 13, 2005
By John Gibson
Fox News

Editorial Link: Here

My Response:

Do you really want to know the answer, or are you just kicking up dust to make an ideological point or make money?

If you REALLY wanted to know, you would know. How? By doing some research. I know, I know, that would require work and real journalistic skills on your part and your editor's part and we can't have that.

I'll make it simple for you though:

-Research back to 1900 on criminal statistics and see what was the per capita incidence of on-child crime;
-Talk to criminal history experts to see what differences there was in crime reporting and record keeping;
-Make appropriate adjustments in stats;
-Look at stats today and the past decade;
-Do a trend analysis to see if there has been a SIGNIFICANT change given our increases in population and media coverage.

THIS will tell you what you want to know. But, I think you're more interested in continuing to foster the FEAR that children are in more danger because it fits nicely with the overall THEO-CON fear campaign used to justify theocratic influences and draconian laws.

Your question should be: Is the PERCEPTION of our children's safety worse than in the past?

That answer is simple: Yes. Because that is exactly the perception that Fox News wants to project. It's good for politics and it's good for business.
There may indeed be a rise in the threat to children, but your show and any show on Fox won't address that by putting talking heads on the screen to pontificate about the downfall of society without producing any such facts. See, THAT is what is bias in the media; not facts that are reported that run counter to an ideology. It's sad that you cannot tell the difference.