In the news today.....

Gene Kirkpatrick is out on a $1 Million dollar bond. He is the man accused of being the mastermind in the murder of his son-in-law.

This headline is everywhere today, it has been on every local news stations, printed in the local papers and on so many different websites I could not begin to count. A lot of people have a lot of things to say about the matter....none of which is probably as a result of being fully informed.

I am not here to talk about whether this is right or wrong. You have your opinion and I have mine. In case you are curious, mine is that Gene Kirkpatrick is a good man who is not a flight risk and is the kind of person that will stand up and accept his punishment for anything that he did that was wrong or illegal. Being a Christian, he will face his God to account for what was done and being an American he will stand before a judge and jury who will consider all of the evidence and give him a fair punishment if a crime was committed. I am not a legal expert. I only know what I pick up from the "loosely based on fact" crime shows that I watch from the comfort of my sofa. What I do know is Gene Kirkpatrick. I have faith that what needs to be done will be done. He is my friend. Not was. Is.

My point, however, is not to argue any of these points with anyone. I respect everyone's right to make their own informed opinion. The problem seems to be that can any of us ever be really fully informed? The media saturates our worlds with bits and pieces of a story only to abandon it as a newer, hotter story comes in. Online media has both pros and cons. As a pro you can get information on demand. If I wanted to know the most recent things that were said, I can simply go to my favorite web browser and search anything that fits my criteria. A con is that anyone can post anything on the web, causing the masses to go largely misinformed, which is more dangerous in my opinion than being uninformed.

Journalism was once thought of as something that was well trusted. When you turned on the 6 o'clock news, what you heard was assumed to be well researched and the absolute truth as they knew it. Now, journalism is hard hitting, always trying to one-up each other competing for your attention with catchy taglines and shocking information. The integrity of information in the quest to grab your attention is merely a casualty along the way.