Judging a Book by Its Cover

Recently I've run across a lot of stories in the news in which the "main character" is portrayed in the story as evil and horrible, and yet the rest of the story suggests that there may be another explanation. Unfortunately, the people in the stories are already branded by the media as horrible people and their lives are ruined (for the foreseeable future) because the media rarely, if ever, covers when these people are cleared of charges as much as they cover the actually charges being made.

In the first of the two stories linked below, a mother was arrested after her 3 year old son was found unconscious beneath her. The mother herself was found unconscious as well. The entire family (four children and the mother) were found "huddled outside in the cold." If you read some of the comments posted after the story, there's people calling this mother a "monster". Why? There is nothing in the rest of the story to indicate that this was anything other than a tragic result of winter arriving and catching a homeless family off guard. Yet the woman's picture is plastered all over the internet now along with the fact that she was charged with assaulting one of her own children, thus making her into a monster in the eyes of many. Without taking time to find out the real facts, many of the people reading the story are condemning this woman.

In the second story, the first thing that catches your eye is the headline: "17-year-old admitted killing 10-year-old brother 'in cold blood'". So your immediate reaction is to think of the 17-year-old as a monster. And the first ten paragraphs of the story support your initial reaction, including the part about the Ohio County (IN) prosecutor calls the child "evil". And yet buried at the end of the story are a whole lot of red flags that suggest that this child has severe mental health issues.

The first flag (which actually occurs in the third paragraph) is when his girlfriend says he seemed happier than he'd been for a while. That's not a normal reaction after one has killed one's younger brother.

The second flag is what he gave as his reason why he killed his brother. He likens it to being hungry and having to eat, suggesting a need to kill rather than a desire.

The third flag was the observation by other residents of the small town that he had become self-destructive, even attempting suicide. Why the change from the A and B student who had never really been in trouble?

The fourth red flag is that his parents recently pulled him out of school. Why? Was he being bullied or was he bullying? Had his behavior become out of control at the school? Or were his parents losing control of him and thought that by pulling him from school, they could better control him? If so, what was their motivation for seeking control?

The fifth flag is that during the entire interview with the police, the boy was described as "matter-of-fact" and "unemotional". This is a 17-year-old male in the throes of puberty! "Unemotional" and "matter-of-fact" are not common descriptions of young men during this time period.

Yet most people will walk away from this story thinking that Andrew Conley is a monster. They will have written him off and there will be demands that he be put to death. My initial reaction is that this child needs help. And lots of it. But his chances of getting it are relatively slim.

These are only two examples of how we as a society judge a book by its cover. We take what we hear from the media and we run with it, never bothering to look back and see if what we took is true. We don't ask "Why?" we simply condemn. We trust the words of a medium whose purpose is to make money by bring the biggest share of readers/viewers to its stories. A medium which has learned that it's the bad news that draws those readers. What a sad commentary on American society.