When police arrested a wealthy Maine couple
and charged them with kidnapping their
19-year-old daughter for a forced abortion, the
media paid attention. When police said
the alleged victim told them her parents were
enraged because the unborn child's jailed
father was black, it became a story everyone
wanted a piece of. Soon Nicholas and Lola
Kampf's struggles with their daughter Katelyn
were hashed out on talk radio in Atlanta, in
newspapers from Topeka, Kan. to London,
England, and on 24-hour TV. ...
... The story led local newscasts
for a week and appeared on the front page of
the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday
Telegram five times in eight days. But by the
time the Kampfs categorically denied their
daughter's version of events, the national
interest had waned.
How the Kampf story
climbed from a family crisis to national
prominence speaks to the way news is put
together and consumed in an era of change in
the media. Media experts say that stories that
generate platforms for opinions are highly
prized. And technological advances and
economic forces mean no story is really local
anymore. ...
... "Stories can
mushroom in ways that certainly wouldn't have
happened 10 years ago, not even five years
ago," said Bob Steele, an expert on
journalistic ethics with the Poynter Institute in
St. Petersburg, Fla. The world of non-stop
discussion needs stories with key elements
that can offer a platform for already-formed
opinions.
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