This is Pitiful!

Yeah that is pretty messed up.. You would have thought that the local law enforecement would have taken them to the station house or whatever... Or at least to the next McDonalds...

 

Exactly.

 

Granted, leaving "kids" on the road isn't the best thing, but the mom demanded a counselor!?!? How dramatic can you get.....

 

What? They couldn't run home? Back in my day......

 

Only in Florida...

 

That article sucked. Seems to be yet another byproduct of a need to "get something" out quickly - forget about substance or even writing skills.

It's very difficult to feel anything other than robbed of a few minutes by reading it and trying to get anything meaningful from it.

I will admit to not being a newspaper reader - but I do feel that when reporting news, there should be fact-checking and substantial information provided beyond what any dolt with eyeballs can observe.

Did the driver actually have outstanding fines or was this another glitch in the system? Is that something that cannot be determined? Has anyone tried to get an answer? Why am I reading about what essentially is an "I heard this story about a guy who did something then someone else did something else and now everyone is all upset..."

 

1. Agreed, but...
2. It's a blog, and
3. It's Yahoo.

 

Good points - every one.

Obviously leaving kids stranded on the side of the road is a bad thing. But when the "reporting" is so wrought with "non-reporting" it's hard to even believe what's being reported is true or accurate.

 

This was mis-handled in every possible way. Another idiotic example of a police unit and a school screwing up a situation. The guy driving deserved a ticket, and it was his job to keep up with his legal status. He's an idiot. The police should have made sure the kids were taken care of - they were idiots. And the school trying to disavow this and washing their hands - they're idiots.

This jumps out at me:

"Wilson and his children all insisted that the experience had been a stressful one. Still, because the school had refused to accept any blame for the incident, Wilson's request to have his sons speak to a school counselor was not quickly addressed."

A COUNSELOR??? How fragile are kids today??????? If this had happened to me, once I got over being pissed and my parents went after the school, I'd probably be laughing about it with my friends.

 

I don't disagree with that sentiment, Dr. C. and if the story has legs, that part of it is undoubtedly worthy of consideration. Fortunately none of what you describe that could have happened did happen. Speculating on the idea of what could have happened opens the door to a lot of alternate 'could have happened too' speculations.

I am curious what responsibility the police have in these situations. It seems to me that they would be minimally responsible for a ride to the station.

If the story is not some bit of manufactured hyperbole designed to do nothing more than provoke outrage, then I agree that there are things contained therein that are worthy of consideration. But it's hard to believe much of anything with all the glaring holes and the lack of effort to fill them in. It seems to be the type of story designed to draw in links and provoke commentary for the blog/site hosting it.

Ad impressions make $$. Controversial, non-stories with explosive race/children in danger/bad cops/bad teachers = link, click, $$$.

 

So I guess it's a non-issue to you if these kids are white????

 

Did miss the part where the race of the people in the story was presented?

 

I think you may be confusing my comments with another poster's - to the best of my recollection, I haven't mentioned the coach. My 'axe to grind' was with the shabby nature of the 'reporting'. I suspect the shoddy nature of such reports is less an example of poor journalism and more by design to increase page views.

The more outrageous and fact-free, the better. Opening the door to speculation by omitting facts makes for more arguing. More arguing makes for more page views by people wanting to argue about things that aren't facts or even relevant to the story.

I see no downside to the media who allow for such half-baked reporting. It's win, win, win, win, win... No one takes the quality all that seriously because it's on the Internet and as we all know, the Internet is full of crap - so a poorly reported news item doesn't raise any flags. People just take whatever was said and run with it causing more and more people to chime in on how they feel about what other people are saying about the notoriously fact-less story that spawned all the debate.

Page view, page view, page view... Mo' money, mo' money, mo' money...

That's my the issue I have - I have no opinion on the story other than it was a poorly reported story with very little to go on other than a few sexy, provocative tidbits.

 

I read the story on www.nbcmiami.com, which provides little more detail. Here's some key points:

1. They weren't on a school sanctioned trip, or heading to a school sanctioned track meet. Yet, the parents thought it was school related. Where was this guy taking these kids????

2. The article doesn't state as implied by the blog and our good friend Cheese, that these kids were actually left on the road. They DID get a ride to the next stop, although they seem to object to the accomodations for the trip.

3. The coach didn't have his license, wasn't authorized to drive the rental car, and was exceeding the speed limit by 16 mph with "kids" in the car.

4. At least one of the "kids" was an 18 year old adult.

Seems like a lot of hype and drama in this story.

 

That's what I got out of the NBS article as well. Significantly less 'stranded kids on the highway' - a lot more "wha?".