Tracking Project

After following the newspapers for the past seven days, the numbers I found didn't actually surprise me that much. The Front page had approximately 36 mentions of men and 18 mentions of women. The sports page had at least 50 mentions of men and less then 15 mentions of women. However, what surprised me is that the business section had almost an equal amount of men and women mentioned, but mostly because I found there were a lost of spokeswomen used for quotes and also the Life section had almost twice as much male influence than female, 2:1.

The only mentions of race I could find were in the Life section, one referring to blacks and another referring to Irish immigrants. A lot of times there were simply large pictures of the people they were referring to, and many times I noticed that the larger pictures were those of black people.

I didn't find a lot of C suites mentioned, surprisingly, but I was astonished at the number of spokeswomen used. There were two females I noticed that were titled as Vice Presidents, other than that it was very broad.


"That's the last time I mention Galaxy Quest at a Trek Convention!"
"Run you fool!"
"He's a witch!"
"BURN THEM!"

Ethical Issue #2

An article at CNN.com was posted about two 16-year-old girls that were prostituting themselves out and were also pimping five other girls. They had also bought an apartment to be used for the "business". The first girl, Tatiana Tye, was accompanied by her grandmother (guardian after Tye left her mother) in responses to the press. However, Jazmine Finley, the other 16-year-old girl, was not able to comment because her guardian failed to show up and give permission.

The prosecutors are planning for the girls to be tried as adults, as they believe all of their charges count as felonies (which include child prostitution, pandering, and receiving earnings as a prostitute).

Ok, first off the article should not mention the name of Jazmine Finley due to the fact that her guardian never showed up to give permissions. If there was a time after that when permissions to use the name were given, they should be mentioned. The whole issue around the prosecutes releasing the names and trying them as adults is bewildering to me. It has nothing to do with ethics in journalism, but holy crap. I'm surprised the article doesn't mention the names of some of the other girls that were recruited.

Ethical Issue #1

An article at NKY.cincinnati.com gives a brief story of a local autistic 18-year-old that beat his mother to death, who happened to be a Professor at Kent State.

They tell the name of the child, Sky Walker (which I find funny because one of my favorite animes, Outlaw Star, has the main character "Gene Skywalker"... I digress). The article mentions that he is being held in prison and the prosecutors are waiting for results of an evaluation to determine if he is competent for trial.

I don't believe that, because of the mental illness, they should have released his name. The article should go into more detail as to if he has a living guardian or what permissions have been given. More information should also be given as to if this is a first occurrence or if acts of outrage have escalated to this extent before. There just isn't enough substance for this to be a creditable article, and I believe there are issues surrounding the releasing the name of a mentally-ill person, over the age of 18 or not. Also, the article says that he is convicted of two counts of murder. Would that mean two people would have to be dead? Who is the other person? Why did he attack a law enforcement officer? While I agree that this is a newsworthy story, the way it has been published is unethical. This kid is getting charged with a lot of things and the public clearly doesn't know the whole story.

boing

Dude, another one.