Media Bias Blog - Cleveland Article about Charles Ramsey

As I prepare for the Fall term and provide examples (for my students) of selective media bias in reporting, I noticed one instance today that falls directly into the category of "deliberately edited" or censored. There was this instance in May 2013 (remember, I am writing this to show to my Fall 2013 class) where one Cleveland station that pulled the story about the criminal past of Charles Ramsey, the man who aided in the escape of Amanda Berry from her "imprisonment", leading to the rescue of two other kidnap victims (Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight) as well. When the station was "bombarded" with complaints about the online story, they invariably pulled it. It seems that most felt it was inappropriate, or possibly too soon to be addressing any "inadequacies" concerning the man who had assisted Berry. The public (and the media) have postured him as a "hero", and the public did not want to hear any negative commentary about him (just yet). WEWS-TV's action is an example of media bias prompted by pressure from its online audience, the users that visited their web site. Throughout the earlier part of the week, the media were also "struggling" with reportage concerning Michelle Knight, as it appears her abduction had been selectively ignored by both the police and the media - I am sure this was based on her age at the time, as she was an adult (20 years old) when reported missing, as opposed to 14 and 16 for the other two victims. Of course now it didn't matter...all three deserved the same coverage - but they didn't have pictures of her available, as well as a very limited amount of background information, as was accessible for the other two; media bias in the past, when covering the different kidnappings...and assuming Knight's instance was not one.