News Media Critique .....

                    Jessica Chambers' Changes the World?

     Approximately 13 hours from this moment, Fox news took it upon themselves to feature an article on the murder of Jessica Chambers. Jessica who had been had burned alive back in 2014, a great tragedy for her loved ones along with the rest of her community. Recently due to frustration of a mistrial of  Quiton Tellis, her alleged murderer in 2017, one of her friend has decided to take part in a Oxygen docu-series called "Unspeakable Crime:The Killing of Jessica Chambers." This article was written by Christina Corbin and the Associated Press and featured in the crime category of the popular media network Fox News.

     Now while Jessica's murder was in fact incredibly gruesome and disturbing, it  doesn't require the  level of attention the authors given it by writing it and featuring it on Fox. This is a clear violation of the fourth yardstick of journalism ..... local relevance. Had the article been featured in Mississippi where Jessica is from it would have been completely understandable; however, it was featured on Fox a nationwide platform.

    Taking the time to feature this article in the place of many more newsworthy articles is a major miscalculation. That makes this article also a violation of newsworthiness. There is absolutely no visible impact at a national level, but rather it merely takes the place of more important news. Especially considering that the death was not even a recent one, it occurred 4 years ago back in 2018. It would have been better replaced by the rape problem in India that is channeling into a global wide discussion of the critical problem.

    Now there may be a deeper meaning within this news story that's being missed; however, regardless of that fact, the author of the article is still failing at the yardstick explanation. If this story does have a bigger context the author failed to properly address said bigger picture. It gave us the "what" but not the "so what" failing to explain to us readers what makes the story so important. If the writer had taken the time to further the topic and thoroughly describe the greater relevance, it may have held greater context to national readers as a whole.

         To read the full article go to here.