The following headline appeared on Tuesday, June 5, 2018 at Fox News: “Virginia sex offender seen snatching 7-month-old from mother in photos released by police.” It all seems pretty straightforward, at least until you read the accompanying article.
The first glaring ommission from the headline, but buried deeper in the article, is the fact that the alleged abductor, Carl Ray Kennedy, is the child’s biological father. Surprise! And even more interesting is the fact that we are told nothing about his custodial rights or lack thereof anywhere in the article. We are simply left to assume that he is the non-custodial parent and perhaps even make the further, unwarranted assumption that sex offenders in general do not deserve custodial rights to their own children.
The next thing that jumps out is the description of the man as a sex offender. A simple Google search reveals that Carl Ray Kennedy has had 32 convictions for a wide variety of crimes since 1985. His crimes include felony possession of cocaine, felony distribution of cocaine, felony conspiracy to sell cocaine, felony assault by strangulation, felony sexual battery, and a ton of related misdemeanors and SO registration violations. So, why doesn’t the headline read, “Convicted cocaine distributor snatches 7-month-old from mother?” Obviously, because sex offender stories sell and because news media corporations are businesses out to make a profit.
“Everyone” hates sex offenders. But they all like to make a buck off them.
My ex wife has tried everything under the sun to keep my children away from me. Of course not until she was caught in an extramarital affair. And my offense was before our relationship began and she knew about my status from day one and was my biggest defender until our relationship dissolved.
people are sharing the crap out of it on facebook including my own family. here’s the problem if you say well he was arrested for many other crimes people think you are defending him. it was also listed he took the baby at knife point i don’t know if that’s true or not. if it turns out he was entitled to have the child(which with his background i doubt) i will go on the offensive. but this is another case where the RSO haters will say see they cant be cured their monsters
The same rotten reasoning by the news media that plasters the name and picture of anyone arrested on suspicion of a sex crime all over the TV, before any charges have been filed. They assume guilt without ever looking at any evidence. Same reason you can’t really get a fair trial in a CSC case. Jurors are biased right from the start, and the media feeds the bias.
It’s hard to understand how the public can continue to buy this garbage . If you kill someone ,no problem,take away your guns.If your a druggy no problem let’s get you some help. If your physically abusive let’s help you out . If you rob someone ,slap your hands. If your on the SOR,no matter for how minor offence, let’s mark you make it impossible to earn a living and take care of your family.make it extremely difficult to find housing ,prohibit access to public services but you still have to pay for them through taxes. Mark your passport so you can’t go anywhere else . Make pages of other restrictions and regulations so no normal person would be able to follow them all without breaking one and get incarcerated even more.
Cocaine dealer headline is not as provacative as sex offender snatches 7 year old. TV News Directors especially during sweeps will ask for exploitative stories knowingly sex offender stories rise to the top and sell.
The business motto is “If it bleeds it leads, if it’s sex it’s next”
Has this article been forwarded to the reporter? These kinds of lies and false reporting for the sake of ratings MUST STOP!
Doug, can you share it with the reporter?
Sorry, I’m not really computer literate. I don’t know how.