Why even have media when it comes to any kind of crimes if it’s not going to ‘inform’ society the correct facts? If it’s just going to me people believe what it wants them to believe. It happened before in a horrific case that occurred in West Memphis, Arkansas called “The West Memphis Three.” Three eight year olds suddenly disappeared and where found killed by a creek. Police officers say that they were killed in some kind of satanic ritual. Lieutenant James Sudbury knew of a young boy who was involved in those kinds of things and pointed him out as a suspect. That young boy was named Damien Echols. Two other young boys also became the prime suspects, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin.
“The problems with this case began from the moment the bodies were first discovered. Lack of experience and professionalism on the part of police at the crime scene meant that it was not properly protected and vital evidence was either destroyed or not collected at all (Steel, Epilogue).” Police officers didn’t have enough evidence from the start to even say that the young teens were guilty and just said anything that would proof their guesses of what happened; even though they could have not been the truth.
So not only was there not proper evidence to inform the community, but information that should have been just been kept between officials was openly said to the public. “Vital information regarding the case was openly discussed by the investigators with witnesses, suspects and the media. Information which should have been known by only the offender and the police was public knowledge, severely effecting the validity of any information procured from witnesses and suspects alike (Steel, Epilogue).” Media has a big thing of turning something not so small into something big. Taking ‘real’ facts and restating them to make them more dramatic. To please people, but what they don’t take in consideration is that people believe what they say and trust t’s saying the truth. We know that the police didn’t have the correct facts about the case later