Please understand that I have great respect for The Fifth Estate and for the Canadian documentary series entitled The Fifth Estate. I've long admired the program but am disappointed in the quality of the segment that was recently aired in relation to the Owen Rooney case.
There is always a difficult situation when someone is missing. How much time and effort will be spent? What resources will be utilized? What risks will searchers be exposed to? What funds will be expended? What avenues appear most likely to be fruitful? What steps should have priority and what should be back-burnered?
I've posted before about the courage of the Derek Kelly family in immediately insisting that the RCMP consider their "missing person" to be a victim of homicide. Do you think the Derek Kelly family didn't want their Derek to be alive. I'm sure they did. Desperately. Yet they faced facts and they faced the RCMP which, if I recall correctly, took two years to officially term it a homicide.
I've posted about Eric Wilson's family. This decades old case is relevant solely because The Fifth Estate's award winning documentary on it focused mainly on the attitude of law enforcement versus the attitude the family was encouraged to take.
Was the Fifth Estate's program on the missing Owen Rooney a service to the community and to the family? There are different viewpoints on that matter. A family wants to have hope. Journalists are not supposed to go around dashing hopes much less taking pleasure in doing it. Would the family and the Fifth Estate benefit from a different emphasis? I don't know. I think so. I think it is the duty of the Fifth Estate to make a judgment and to exercise discretion rather than merely take press releases from the police and publicize them unedited and unscrutinized. A sense of balance, a sense of fairness and a bit of common sense should be the emphasis of the Fifth Estate. A great many things are possible, some are clearly more probable than others but an analysis should not avoid that which is unpleasant to contemplate.
The Eric Wilson documentary won an award. I don't think the recent show on Owen Rooney will be winning any journalism awards. Fair and balanced? We are not here to split an already fine hair. The RCMP did poorly in the Derek Kelly case and the Fifth Estate was not there to expose the RCMP to public scrutiny. The RCMP has done poorly in the Owen Rooney case and once again the RCMP has not been subjected to public scrutiny by the Fifth Estate.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Please do not think that I advocate the RCMP should be cold, callous and cruel and immediately dash the hopes of family members.
Missing people do turn up. Lost hikers can cover incredible distances and can meet with great luck.
Amnesia is rare particularly for deeply encoded information but it does take place. The family is usually more inclined to hope than the police are. That is normal and perhaps even desirable.
I just think the Fifth Estate's duty was to be less tolerant of the RCMP's inaction.
Not everyone will follow a simple formula as simple formulas are often for simpletons. However, bilateral bleeding from the ear canals is a sure tip-off. Such injuries seldom are the consequences of a fist fight or a fair fight. Someone put the boots to him while he was down on the ground.
My simplistic formula:
Head injuries implies boots. Boots implies Bikers. Bikers implies drugs. Bikers are not known for truthfulness and no statements as to events or the times at which they took place should be trusted. Bikers are not known for fighting fair or for having any hesitancy to finish what they started! Bikers are particularly to be thought of as unhesitating whenever the situation is that finishing the job removes even a remote threat of prosecution.
Simplistic? Yes. Sometimes things are indeed too simple.
Post a Comment