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We have a problem in my city. The normally law abiding citizens of Louisville, KY have been incited to lawlessness by a fan of "The Purge: Anarchy." It all started with this sinister tweet: Flyers began to show up soon after: This anonymous twitter user is clearly a dangerous madman. But, not to worry! The Louisville Police Department is on the case! WLKY, Bastion of Journalism posted:A threat posted on social media about a threat of violence in Louisville Friday night forced school officials to postpone a football game that had been scheduled. Thankfully, Saint Xavier High School Football is safe from the anarchy. But what about the rest of the city? quote:WLKY asked Mayor Greg Fischer what he thought about the purge. Oh good, random citizens are getting guns to protect themselves from a flyer! This should end well. Let's take a look at some of the chaos that unfolded last night. Probably fake http://i.imgur.com/LBtDqi3.jpg The survivors of this horrible event take to twitter to tell their harrowing tales: And, finally, a loving high school newspaper is the best source of journalism in town. Manual Red Eye posted:“It was originally supposed to be just a fun thing, I never thought it’d get as serious as it did,” said the Iroquois student, whom RedEye has chosen not to identify by name for his own protection. “I was really shocked the first time I saw local media covering it.” (DuPont Manual alums represent) Okie doke. All snark aside, this whole thing was a shitshow from start to finish. It reminds me of the time that a mooninite was put on the bridge in LEDs and people called in a bomb scare. In this particular instance, I can understand some amount of concern, because a specific time period was given. But blowing it up into a mass terrorist event? Based on a couple of flyers and a tiny tweet? Jesus Christ, local media. The best part about this is that the police knew it was a hoax. They and the FBI had to release statements and investigate because they're required to, but people kept bumping into cops and asking them about it, and the response was almost a universal rolling of eyes. Yet, here we are, and everyone over the age of 40 is jumping on the kid for making a fool out of Louisville. No, Louisville, you made a fool out of Louisville. I'm not necessarily opening debate on how terrible mass media is, especially local media. I don't think there'll be a lot of people here or elsewhere that'll argue against that. (But I could be wrong!) The point is, at what point does something like this elevate to a credible threat? How of much of this is the media culpable for? Would simply treating this as a "well be careful but honestly this sounds dumb" prevented a night of admittedly hilarious comedy, or would this would have happened anyway? Obviously, these are all hypotheticals, but a good starting point for discussion. (Also I wanted an excuse to post this because holy poo poo we're dyin over here over it.)
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# ¿ Aug 16, 2014 17:33 |
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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 08:39 |
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FuzzySkinner posted:I will say that the people joining in on the hashtag filled it with really bad spongebob/2000's Nickelodeon memes. It was perpetrated by a high schooler. But I thought some of the hash tag stuff was actually pretty funny FuzzySkinner posted:To be fair, I imagine everyone is on edge about what's happening in Ferguson right now. Well. My problem with this isn't necessarily the authority's response, which was surprisingly level-headed. I snark about moving the football game, but honestly, it was the right thing to do. But, I think the mayor's speech went way over the top. And, more importantly, When the Courier-Journal starts dropping poo poo like this after it's been revealed to be a dumb prank, the only conclusion is that local media is willingly and callously playing it up for more eyeballs. (Shocking in this day and age, I know.) Even if you take Ferguson into account, it makes it even more disgusting. They know people are on edge and are happy to exploit that. hobbesmaster posted:U of L fans?
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# ¿ Aug 17, 2014 16:32 |
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cheese eats mouse posted:Slow news day and a small town what you expect? Louisville's really not a small town (28th in the nation in population), and I'm not just saying that because I live here and have some dumb sense of pride I do. We're kind of bonkers in that we're right smack in the middle of Southern Indiana, Northern Kentucky, and the Cincy area at the same time. It's this bizarre hodgepodge of art scene, shiny new businesses, and old buildings. We are also consistently a huge deep blue dot in a sea of red come election time.
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# ¿ Aug 18, 2014 19:32 |