Jackson Jambalaya

One thing that has been interesting has been the media coverage of the whole episode involving Mr. Taylor.

The Clarion-Ledger published a story on Mr. Taylor's release from jail on June 25 that gave an informative brief description of his history while refuting Mayor Melton's statements that the carjacking charges being dropped. It did not publish the Myspace photos. I wondered about this but someone pointed out to me that Myspace photos are not substantiated and in the age of photoshopping, verification of these things is more important than ever. However, one other factor to consider is that if these WERE fake photos, Mr. Melton would have lambasted the media. He also admitted he admonished Mr. Taylor about them, so by admission it appears that these photos are genuine. WAPT scooped everyone else on these photos. This was the only story about Mr. Taylor that appeared in The Clarion-Ledger last week.

The Jackson Free Press, as usual, had VERY thorough coverage of this story.http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/comments.php?id=11873_0_51_0_C. It also was the first to report Mr. Taylor's carjacking arrest: http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/comments.php?id=11792_0_27_0_C.

In a moment of prescience, the JFP published a story that focused on young Mr. Taylor on April 18: http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/comments.php?id=13313_0_9_0_C in a story that gives a VERY GOOD history of My. Taylor. It is well worth reading as the premonition paid off because Mr. Taylor was in the news and then the Myspace photos surfaced: http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/comments.php?id=14074_0_4_0_C as the JFP published one of the photos although the reporter did make a mistake in reporting that the SKS is a semi-automatic version of the AK-47. They are both semi-automatic rifles used by the Chinese and Russians. Neither is a version of the other any more than the M-16 is a version of the M-1. The reporter has further elaborations on the story in the comments thread.

As for the broadcast media, WAPT had the best coverage. It gave the most thorough coverage to the Myspace pictures of Mr. Taylor and his guns: http://www.wapt.com/news/13583070/detail.html

It also broadcast a story that showed the victims' outrage over his release: http://www.wapt.com/news/13583070/detail.html and went so far as to question if he should be out of jail: http://www.wapt.com/news/13591516/detail.html.

WLBT predictably had no coverage. A listing of the stories covered by WLBT going back to June 24 shows no mention of the Michael Taylor release from jail nor any coverage of the myspace pages or the victim's outrage. A search using the terms: michael, taylor, yerger, carjacking, melton yields on results on its search engine.


WJTV also had no coverage. A search of its website yielded no results.

So if one were to give out grades for this story: WAPT would get an A+, The Jackson Free Press would get an A, The Clarion-Ledger would get a B, and WJTV and WLBT would get F's (actually zeros but we are grading on a letter scale).