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Runaway Bride Lost in Junk Journalism
Veteran newsman Sam Donaldson www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/4/20/123807.shtml
announced it. Jennifer Wilbanks -- the Run-Away
Bride -- www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,155119,00.html
proved it. "Network news is dead." Tabloid
journalism used to be a guilty vice enjoyed by
people waiting in supermarket lines. They now dress
it up as evening news but even good journalists
cannot infuse the supermarket stories with
substance. In fact, they don't seem to be trying.
.
Elements of the Wilbanks story are news worthy
but, oddly enough, those aspects remain almost
unmentioned.
Instead, the police officer who walked Wilbanks
through an airport is interviewed on primetime TV.
Instead, 'journalists' rush to break the story that
Wilbanks had been nabbed as a www.11alive.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=62798
shoplifter a decade ago. And therapists announce a
new psychological syndrome: abcnews.go.com/GMA/Health/story?id=718862&page=1&CMP=OTCRSSFeeds0312
ColdFeetitis, which drives brides-to-be "over the
edge."
What are the newsworthy aspects of the Wilbanks
fiasco? Here are several…
A seachange is occurring in how our culture
regards and deals with those who make false
accusations and police reports. Five years ago, it
was commonplace to hear that victims -- especially
women and children -- never lie. Those who doubted
a victim's story, even in the presence of
questionable evidence, were accused of
re-victimizing the person and, so, silenced.
Today, it is clear that false reports occur with
some frequency and there is an increased
willingness to treat those who file them as
criminals. My recent column www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,153969,00.html
"False Rape Claim Hurts Real Victims" described a
false rape report filed by Desiree Nall, President
of the Brevard, Fla., chapter of the National
Organization for Women. The State attorney's office
has brought charges against Nall.
The seachange in attitude became clear to me
last April with the Audrey Seiler story. At that
time, FOX reported www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,117088,00.html
"A college student accused of faking her own
kidnapping last month was charged Wednesday with
lying to police in what they suggested was a
desperate attempt to get her boyfriend's
attention." Seiler's false report caused a massive
man-hunt for her abductor that cost an estimated
$96,000. She pleaded guilty to obstruction of
justice and was ordered to make financial
restitution to the police.
The recognition and punishment of false
accusations is an important and necessary shift in
our culture…but there are dangers. Real
violence happens constantly and faux victims like
Wilbanks can harden hearts toward real ones. I
doubt that Wilbanks' neighbors will ever view a
'victim' with unconditional sympathy again. An
awareness of false reports can too easily become
callousness toward real victims.
Another under-discussed but newsworthy element:
Wilbanks made www.krqe.com/expanded.asp?ID=9858
false statements to the New Mexico police (and
later the Georgia ones), claiming she was kidnapped
by msnbc.msn.com/id/7748388
an Hispanic man and a woman. That fact has been
widely broadcast and perhaps she will be
prosecuted. But her mental instability makes that
prospect unlikely and the absence of criminal
intent is a problem.
What is unmentioned by the media, however, is
the fact that until she made those statements -- an
act that occurred at the tail end of the police
investigation -- Wilbanks had done nothing wrong in
a legal sense.
The foregoing statement is not an expression of
sympathy. As far as I am concerned, Wilbanks should
be disowned by her parents, shunned by friends, and
bitten by the family dog.
But she is a free human being. Except for the
purpose of fraud or other crime, she has a legal
right to disappear, to run out on a wedding. The
alternative is to require people to inform
authorities about their whereabouts and movements
as they were required to do in the Soviet
Union.
And this is another danger that the dubious
likes of Wilbanks inflict upon society. It is all
too possible that people will react to the mass
coverage of her family's pain by calling for a law
to prevent similar occurrences. And, so, because of
a mentally and morally unbalanced woman, every one
of us could become a little less free.
The fact that Wilbanks broke no law up until the
final moments of the lamentable episode has another
implication that the news should be exploring.
Namely, it is far from clear that she should be
liable for the estimated $60,000 it cost police to
search for her. After all, Wilbanks did not file a
report on herself; she did not seek assistance from
the police. The tens of thousands of dollars and
man hours wasted occurred before she did anything
legally wrong. And they would have been spent
whether or not she made a false statement.
What Wilbanks did was to exercise a legal right;
she left town without giving notice. To attach
financial liability to the exercise of a legal
right has tremendous implications and should never
be done lightly.
Just as I do not understand why the media so
quickly turned "a missing person" story into a
nationwide drama, I can't comprehend why the most
important questions surrounding Wilbanks remain
unaddressed.
The police reaction is understandable. Most
police departments no longer impose a mandatory
waiting period on a missing person report. (Perhaps
this is a mistake. Perhaps the waiting period
served a valid purpose.) Moreover, the families
involved seem to be prominent within Wilbanks'
town. Prominent or not, however, the police could
not downplay this report; there are just too many
reporters ready to pounce on juicy "victims" like a
woman abducted from her marriage altar.
But the media response is baffling. Unless, of
course, I return to the column's opening: "Network
news is dead." So where do we go for analysis?
©2010, Wendy
McElroy
* * *
Wendy
McElroy is the editor of ifeminists.com
and a research fellow for The Independent Institute
in Oakland, Calif. She is the author and editor of
many books and articles, including her latest book,
Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the
21st Century. She lives with her husband in
Canada. E-Mail.
Also, see her daily blog at www.zetetics.com/mac
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