The Jurors Duty is to Tell the Truth, The Media's Duty is to Sell Papers from Tom Mesereau's Speech
I’m going to do a series of seven posts on Tom Mesereau’s speech at our Summer Convention. I had never met Tom before last week. He spent the entire Convention with us, was very friendly and easy to talk to. I was very impressed by his generosity and willing to talk to us. I took good notes, but not exact notes and will be paraphrasing in these posts. So the thoughts are Tom’s, but the words are mine. In other words, don’t blame Tom if I’m less diplomatic than him.
After his talk, the newspapers ran the story along the lines of ‘Media gets it Wrong’. Actually Tom started off by contrasting the different responsibilities of the jury and the media. The jury has a responsibility and an obligation to listen to the evidence and follow the judge’s instructions on what the law is. Based on that, the jury is supposed to determine the truth. They listen to their gut, they pay attention to the witnesses and the facts, they discuss and argue with each other and come to the truth. That is the jury’s obligation and one they take seriously.
The media’s obligation is to sell copy (papers, commercials, ads...depending on the medium). Plain and simple. So what does the media do to accomplish this? They turn every little detail as a make or break fact, do daily breakdowns of who won and who lost and turn a complex legal case into a daily horse race.
The media also sells a compelling story. And one of our elemental stories is the rags to riches story, especially followed by a fall from grace. It’s a storyline that people understand and like, so the media gives it to them. As a society, we love to put people on a pedestal and then tear them down. It doesn’t matter whether the facts are there or not, that’s the story people want to hear.
Those are some basic insights and it’s difficult for anyone to argue with. Tom was very polite and gave a basic scorecard of some of the media people who got it right and a number that got it wrong. Since I don’t trust my notes enough to single out specific people, I’ll let it go with the basic theme.
Wonderful to hear more of what he actually said rather than just the sensational. Interesting that the stories done on his speech rather proved his point in terms of headlines, focusing on the "media got it wrong" rather than the measured comparison he started off with. Yes he seemed to have spoken strongly further on, according to the reports but it was really the "horrific reporting" comments that were emphasized.
I truly thank you for your posts on his speech and look forward to more!
Just wanted to let you know that i fully agree with this article, the media always gets it wrong becuase they could care less about the truth, sad to say but its true, i play football and i have first hand experience with this issue!!
