Assignment 2-1

01/20/2010
Pictures of Missing Baby Released
CNN News
Nancy Grace

Elizabeth Johnson, the mother of eight month old Gabriel Johnson, was indicted with intent to cause custodial interference, kidnapping, and child abuse in mid January, 2010. January 20, 2010 CNN ran the story about the missing child and their suspicions when photos came to light literally hours before his last credible sighting on December 26, 2009 in Miami, FL.
“Why is she taking these photos? Is it because she wants to remember her child? Not likely” Says Michael Boar (WOAI news radio).
When I started to critique this story, and thinking about the components of stories, I immediately thought that the most important factors would be focus, balance, completeness, and accuracy. Although the focus was clear, concise, and the story itself was well written, I found that there were a good handful of components that were not taken care of how they should have been.
The introduction of the story was vague, and for someone that had not been following this story very much, I was quite lost. There should have been more of a brief background to recap what had been going on in the case or at least a brief overview of who everyone involved was (ie. Elizabeth Johnson, the mother, Logan McQueary, the father). As the story progressed I began to think that it was also a little unbalanced. Although the mother had been indicted already, Nancy Grace, the reporter covering the story, was very one sided about what had happened. She seemed sure that Johnson had not only been one hundred percent at fault for baby Gabriel’s disappearance, but she seemed almost sure that she had killed him even though that had not been confirmed. “In my mind, telling the biological father that you smothered the baby, concealed his body in a dipper bag, and threw him away in the trash is reason to suspect the child is dead… agree or disagree?” (The police had said that this statement received in a text message was not believed to be what happened).
The only other problem that seemed to stand out in this article would be the accuracy of some of the things that Nancy was talking about in reference to the ‘adoptive parents’ in this case. Upon doing a little research of my own on other news sites, I began to find about that the people that Nancy was calling Gabriel’s ‘adoptive parents’ were really not that at all. Tammy and Jack Smith were attempting to adopt Gabriel after randomly befriending Johnson at an airport although the baby’s father had just attained legal guardianship. I thought that it was a bit confusing referring the Smiths as Gabriel’s parents when they have no legal president over him in the slightest.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/crime/2010/01/20/ng.baby.pics.cnn?hpt=T2