When Journalists Don't Think

I was pretty irritated when I read a news article tonight.  I hate to admit that the majority of my “top stories” come from the front page of AOL when logging into my email, but unfortunately that is the case at the moment.  Honestly I wish I could convince the LA Times to deliver just the front page to my door step each morning, but the fact that every morning is spent racing out the door and doing my makeup in my rear view mirror at the stop lights between my apartment and the 405 doesn’t leave much room for reading even the front page.

Ok, back to my point….

On AOL today there was a headline that caught my attention and the story turned out to be about a woman who was a victim of domestic violence.  After being assisted in changing her social security number to create a new identity, she was charged with fraud for wracking up too many student loans between the two SS#s. 

Here is why I am pissed… Ok, yes, the woman did something wrong. Fraud can be a felony and in this case, it is. But why in the world, does the media have to plaster this woman’s face and name over the national news and make the entire world aware of not only who she is, but where she is living?  I will tell you this – if this woman was able to get an agency to change her social security number and her complete identity, she was involved in a very bad domestic violence situation.  An agency is not going to change your identity unless this person was stalking you, continually tracking you down, not obeying restraining orders, etc.  This woman had to have been in a really horrible situation and now, because some journalist had nothing else to write about, this woman is out there, not only for the world to see, but once again, for her batterer to see. 

I am by no means saying what this woman did was right.  Fraud is a horrible thing and she should face the consequences of it.  But just because she did something against the law does not mean this woman deserves to have to be discovered by a complete monster she has worked so hard to hide from. 

I used to work in media, so I understand that there are stories out there that will interest the public.  And public interest is what makes ratings happen which in turn increases revenue.  Trust me – I GET IT.  But now I am on the other side of this, working every day to try and help women get away from horrible, horrible people who have hurt them in ways that you don’t even want to begin to think about.  And not every one of them is perfect and many of them have made poor choices.  It still doesn’t mean they deserve to be physically and mentally abused.  No one deserves that.  I don’t care what you do.  I just wish media outlets and journalist would really think about these things before they throw a story like this up on the front page for the world to see.  This is a perfect example of how some people don’t think about how something they do can really affect another person.  Think people.   Just THINK sometimes… This was one story a writer could have passed on, and should of.