Legal Touchstones and the Misuse of Media

The concept of "innocent until proven guilty” is one of the touchstones of our legal system. We are not to lock people away in jail/prison simply upon supposition and innuendo. They must be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

However, there are many in the media who thrive and gain great financial and personal advantages by trying people in the public forum. These people seem to delight in pillorying those they’ve deemed guilty of some crime without the benefit of ever seeing any evidence of culpability. They are not impartial and do their best to influence the public against the person(s) they’ve decided will give them the best ratings (and therefore more money).

I think these cases that are ‘tried’ in the public forum trample over these individuals’ rights. In such cases I believe the accused is forever ruined by innuendo, whether later found "not guilty" by a jury of their peers. Even when the person these media darlings have gone after is found not guilty in court, they’ll then go after the jury, implying the jury was incompetent or downright stupid. They never retract any of their ‘reporting’ on the case. After all, "not guilty" is not the same thing as "innocent."

There are certain ‘news’ personalities who are more guilty of this than others. In fact, they have built their careers upon being sanctimonious and moralizing crusaders. They are glorified gossip mongers, and they leave a very bad taste in my mouth. They pick and choose what they report, doing their best to sway the public with the spin they put upon what few facts they deign to offer.

The media has great power to do good or ill. Those who choose to sensationalize certain cases simply to boost their ratings are the lowest of the low, in my opinion. I’d much prefer to see impartial reporting of events, and not opinions presented as facts. I’d also prefer to hear a speech without the ‘news’ personalities telling me afterwards what they think the speaker meant. When they do that, they are putting their own spin upon the speaker's intent, as though we are too stupid to draw our own conclusions.

I also greatly distrust political polling. I’ve had a few to which I’ve bothered to answer. But each I’ve encountered is structured in such a way that I couldn’t offer my honest opinion. You must choose A, B, C, or D. The possible answers are designed to elicit a favorable response to whichever party commissioned the poll. But this subject could be another opinion piece of its’ own, one I most likely won’t write.