The power of the press

Someone somewhere owes someone else an apology, and more besides, but it's not likely to happen.

Ah, where to start?   Have you ever watched the TV program "Extreme Makeover, Home Edition?"  Ok.  Then you know how they try to find a worthy family—perhaps the parents run a camp for disabled children, perhaps they take care of children no one else will care for...you get the idea.

This is the kind of family that was assaulted—yes, assaulted— by a sensationalism-hungry Legacy Media over the last few days. Now, when they get to find wrongdoing in the halls of power, O how they feel so righteous!  And yet when their vaunted layers of editors and fact-checkers make a—oops!—mistake, and something gets into print that shouldn't have, how do they correct their errors?

Errors?  What errors?  We're the PRESS!  We trump everyone!  Whatever errors may have been made were of little importance compared to the seriousness of the charges!  What errors could you possibly be talking about?

Well, lessee...let's start with this AP story that ran all over the world—just try to google "gravelles wakeman ohio" (without the quotes, of course) and you'll pull up dozens of pages of news, outraged Reporters Reporting the Reports that have been Reported to them by the Holy AP Syndicated Teletype Oracle, of how there are children in Ohio being kept in cages!  Cages, I say!  It's outrageous!  And I'm appropriately outraged for the occasion, of course.  Back to you, Dan.

Of course, plenty of blame goes also to prosecutor Russell Leffler who started this mess.  He—now get this—he actually wanted to make the case that the Gravelles were doing this for money.  Right.  We'll get to that in a minute.

And oh, yes, I forgot to introduce you to Mike and Sharen Gravelle.  They adopt the un-adoptable children that are normally doomed to spend their lives in institutions instead of homes.  And just what is their reward for doing all this?  It is to have all their children taken away from them and to be known far and wide as the Most Evil Parents in the World.

First, an example of what was reported:

WAKEMAN, Ohio - Sheriff's deputies removed 11 children from a home where they were locked in cages less than 3 1/2 feet high, authorities said.

The children's adoptive and foster parents, Mike and Sharen Gravelle, denied that they'd abused or neglected the children during a custody hearing Monday in Huron County. No charges had been filed as of Monday night.

... The cages were stacked in bedrooms on the second floor of their house, said prosecutor Russell Leffler, who was reviewing the case.

The children were found by a children's services investigator on Friday when he stopped by the Gravelles' home outside Wakeman, about 50 miles west of Cleveland. Deputies returned to the house that evening.

Some of the cages were rigged with alarms, Sommers said; others had heavy furniture blocking their doors. The children didn't have blankets or pillows.

One of the boys said he'd slept in the cage for three years, Sommers said.

... In March, a couple who had recently moved from Ohio to Florida was charged with neglect when their adopted teenager was discovered malnourished in a crib-like cage. The then-17-year-old weighed 49 pounds, investigators said.

The twin-bed-sized crib had been prescribed when the boy was much younger and lived in Ohio. It had been fitted with a lid, chains and a padlock, investigators said.

See?  Cages!  And note the strategic use of the word "rigged," as in "some of the cages were rigged with alarms."  I guess that's supposed to bring up thoughts of booby-traps or something.  See how outrageously outrageous this is?  I'm just...outraged!

I can find no more obvious example of the Legacy Press abusing its power than this story.  None of the abovementioned reporters ever went inside the actual home to see what this was all about, but of course, that didn't stop them from writing stories about the wicked cages, rigged with alarms!—until Michael Gravelle became tired of his wife's being labeled "the world's most evil mother," and he decided to give a tour of his home to a reporter from The Cleveland Plain Dealer.

"I felt terrible about it," Michael Gravelle told a reporter and photographer for The Plain Dealer during a tour of his home Sunday. "But it's necessary."

The children were removed from the home last month and sent to foster homes while the adoptions are investigated. The parents have not been charged, and custody hearings are scheduled in the widely publicized case.

The couple previously has not let reporters into their home.

For privacy reasons, they haven't allowed reporters access to their home.  Reasonable enough.  Except that said reporters will punish you for that by spreading baseless rumors about you.

Here's the kicker.

The Gravelles say they were adopting children nobody else wanted, who had problems such as fetal alcohol syndrome, autism, HIV and pica, an eating disorder that causes children to eat dirt and rocks.

The enclosures where the children slept are about 6 feet in length. The doors could be opened easily and had no locks on them, but a battery-powered alarm would go off when the doors opened, the newspaper said.

They were used as sleeping quarters to prevent the children from hurting themselves with glass or eating medicines, Michael Gravelle said. Every cupboard and shelf was covered with chicken wire for the same reason, he said.

"If you can call these cages, take me to jail right now," Michael Gravelle said. "Right now."

Oops.

Someone kind of, well, jumped to conclusions, didn't they?  These aren't normal children being kept here—these are the most difficult of the difficult cases, the ones where you can't even leave a child unattended through the night, so an alarm was set up to warn the parents if one of the children got out of bed.  I'd probably do the same thing, under the circumstances.

Prosecutor Russ Leffler alleges that the Gravelles were adopting the children for financial gain. Records show they received $4,265 monthly in adoption subsidies and disability payments when they had eight children in 2001.

"You could not pay me enough to do the things we had to do," Michael Gravelle said. "There is nothing easy about raising these children. We did not abuse them. That's the truth."

Let's see...that's about $51,000 a year to raise eleven of the most difficult children in the world.  Sure sounds like "easy street" to me.

Leffler is such an asinine...I can't say it.  I just can't say it.

When the Blogosphere makes an error, it gets splashed all over the front pages of thousands of blogs all over the internet.  When the Legacy Media makes an error, they didn't, really.  It gets buried—nothing to see here.  These aren't the horror stories you're looking for.  They can go about their business.  Move along.

There will be no gnashing of teeth or wringing of hands from them over this.  They caused untold pain and anguish to a family that was just trying to do something good, but there will be no attempt to make it right.  No headlines about what a wonderful thing the Gravelles are doing.  No foundation set up to receive donations so that the Gravelles, and others like them, can do their work a little more easily.  That's the least they could do.  The very least, after spreading nasty, unfounded rumors about good people who were just trying to help.  And the Legacy Media has the power to do just that.

Let's just watch them make it happen, right?  Right?

(Hat tip to Ralph Bristol, and thanks to Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette for the Open Post!)

Comments

[Steel]

I did a little math Obi. They were getting at least 6 grand a month from the basic adoption stuff and each kid is entitled to SSI, Medicaid, Food Stamps AND assistence with housing. Neither parent was gainfully employed. One might assume they too were on the dole to some degree. I appreciate your diligence in researching this, but near as I can tell, these folks were pulling in a substantial income from this endeavor. I say this without regard to the 'caging' of the children. I know plenty of adults who should be caged when they are NOT sleeping.