The ‘now you tell us’ department.
How did we get so many stories so terribly wrong?
Moral panics and institutional failure.
The
headlines of recent decades: ritual satanic abuse in daycare centers, gangs of
wilding youth, worse still superpredators among our
youth, fiendish crack addicts and zombie-like meth heads, frivolous lawsuits
and frightening pop music. And our response: jailing innocent people, handing
people hellishly long prison sentences, torture, attacking the civil justice
system, seeking to censor art, etc.
It’s clear nowadays
that things went terribly wrong. But it was the experts who made horrible calls
about monsters under our beds and it was a willing the public who became too
frighten to bend down and look. The pack
mentality of the media often produced an endless freak show of our worst fears
confirmed, a parade of the usual suspects, empty
reassurance by those in authority, solutions to all the wrong problems. Much of
what was publicized, reported, and believed simply wasn’t true. The real
sources of harm and suffering neglected.
To see how
these stories came about, The New York Times has produced a series of short
news documentaries revisiting old stories where the story started out way ahead
of the facts and the media’s hype along with the public’s panic, ensured the story would never
be bound by facts. It’s a remarkable series that you’ll keep wondering, “now they tell us” but also how did we get so many stories so
terribly wrong?
Retro Report
| The New York Times
McMartin Preschool: Anatomy
of a Panic
In 1984, news reports that hundreds of children had been
abused at a California preschool helped spread panic across the nation. But the
case was not all it seemed and its impact continues to be felt.
After a surge of teen violence in the early 1990s, some
social scientists predicted the future was going to be a whole lot worse.
Reality proved otherwise.
3 Strikes and You're Out:
After 20 Years, Is the Law Working?
After the 1993 murder of a child, many states passed laws to lock up
repeat offenders for life, but today those laws are raising new questions about
how crime is handled in America.
Crack Babies: A Tale From the Drug Wars
Retro Report: In the 1980s, many government officials,
scientists and journalists warned that the country would be plagued by a
generation of "crack babies." They were wrong.
In the 1970s, frustration over heroin related, urban crime
led to the War on Drugs. Today, heroin is back. But the users, and the
response, are very different.
Offended by
lyrics they deemed too sexual and violent, Tipper Gore and Susan Baker
campaigned to put warning labels on albums in 1985. Years later, warning labels
have ended up in unexpected places.
Liebeck V. McDonalds: The
Big Burn
In 1992, Stella Liebeck spilled scalding McDonald's coffee
in her lap and later sued the company, attracting a flood of negative
attention. It turns out, there’s more to the story.
Sexual abuse
in the Catholic Church has been making headlines for years. Some priests have
been punished, but what about the bishops who shielded them?
The story of the first and only
CIA contractor to be convicted in a torture-related case after an
interrogation.
Olympic Bombing 1996:
Richard Jewell, the Wrong Man
The 1996 Olympics in Atlanta were rocked by a bomb that
killed one and injured more than 100. In the rush to find the perpetrator, one
man became a target. There was only one problem. He was innocent.
Exxon Valdez Oil Spill: In
the Wake of Disaster
In 1989, a tanker ran aground off the coast of Alaska,
causing one of the worst oil spills in United States history. Nearly 25 years
later, the lessons of the Exxon Valdez continue to resonate.
And finally, The Central Park Five
In 1989
there were 3,254 reported rapes in New York City. One made us question our
whole system of justice. The story of the
Central Park Five