Are you satisfied with the way the news portrayed Troy Davis?
Was it fair? Could you envision a reader who was first learning of the whole controversy through a single article getting a full picture?
I find these examples telling: the way Davis was introduced in news story ledes.
Emphasis mine in each example:
Fox News: U.S. Supreme Court Refuses to Block Execution of Death Row Inmate Troy Davis
"The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to block the controversial execution of condemned Georgia inmate Troy Davis, which was delayed for several hours as the Court deliberated a stay."
MSNBC: Last-Ditch Appeals as Troy Davis Execution Nears
"The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a stay of execution for convicted killer Troy Davis late Wednesday, hours after he filed an eleventh-hour plea."
*Note: MSNBC updates stories within an existing URL address, so the link now directs to a different story reflecting many ongoing updates.
Associated Press: Troy Davis asks Supreme Court to stop execution
"Troy Davis, the condemned inmate who convinced hundreds of thousands of people but not the justice system of his innocence, filed an eleventh-hour plea Wednesday asking the U.S. Supreme Court to stop Georgia authorities from executing him for the murder of an off-duty police officer."
NEWSCORE via New York Post: Convicted cop killer Troy Davis denied clemency
A bid for clemency by accused cop killer Troy Davis has been denied by a Georgia state board, FOX News Channel confirmed Tuesday.
The various stories go on to present similar information. But the each first reference to Davis carries its own connotations and prejudices - and most people only read the first couple sentences of an online news story.
The ethics of that alone are worthy of a conversation. How should journalists, committed to fairness and "neutrality," refer to a man who the criminal justice system considers guilty, but that is in doubt?
The phrase "condemned Georgia inmate" does not lean towards guilt or innocence - it places him on Death Row in Georgia.
Troy Davis as "Convicted killer" is quite the opposite; the reader is likely to continue into the story with the assumption that Davis is guilty.
"Accused cop killer" is a mixed bag. It could be interpreted as more favorable to innocence since the term "accuse" implies dispute - but also points out right away that the victim is a cop, which brings up different emotions depending on your audience.
What's most interesting is that if you look at these examples - along with others - you find that many of the the most "charitable" ledes come from Rupert Murdoch's organizations, including NEWSWIRE and Fox News.
Really though? I was scratching my head a bit about why that could be.
But I figured it out. Murdoch's Company, News Corporation, isn't an American news conglomerate - it's international. And most of the world is anti-death penalty.
Murdoch's media empire often produces copy from a central location, and feeds it to outlets around the world, crossing international boundaries. That means some of the same news copy we read in the U.S. in News Corp. papers and websites also goes to places where the public is deeply opposed to the death penalty in America.
We've seen News Corp. embrace xenophobic sentiment to whip up attention and interest - think of how healthcare reform was compared, bitterly, to European healthcare on Fox. But News Corp. also does it in reverse; we're seeing a willingness to exploit Europeans' skepticism of America on the death penalty - ironically dished up to Americans themselves because of the structure of the conglomerate.
(It's also apparent the local New York Post writers came up with their own headline - which is pretty routine when editors post wire stories - reverting to the harshest words towards Davis.)
I think this says a lot about how Rupert Murdoch operates. News Corp. has a very sophisticated approach to the way it manipulates public opinion - drawing from the each nation's public sense of identity and using it to support News Corporation's more universal political message.