BajaNomad

San Diego TV News Exploiting Baja Fear?

tripledigitken - 5-9-2008 at 09:35 AM

I watch the local news each weekday morning before heading out to work. Today they had a tease about organized kidknapping gangs working Baja Norte. So I stayed around to listen.

The piece started with announcing that the gang members lived stateside in Chula Vista, National City and the Eastlake area.

Then they brought out the tape of Chris Hall's wife talking about their unfortunate experience of being robbed after the Baja 1000 FROM LAST YEAR. Made no mention of when that event occured, implying it was recent, and implying it was a possible kidknapping attempt. No other mention of any other kidknapping incidents recent or otherwise.

Too bad that some TV producer thinks that piecing together 6 month old tape about an incident that wasn't a kidknap for ranson is newsworthy, and has anything to do with their lead story.

Ken

lizard lips - 5-9-2008 at 09:44 AM

Every year about this time Baja always gets bad press, for that matter all of Mexico.

It may be a tourism thing. The US wants to keep it citizens in the US and not spend tourism dollars elsewhere.

Thats my take.....

oldjack - 5-9-2008 at 09:57 AM

liz...lips...

how naive to think the U.S has a plan for anything....

is it the consensus of the posters that the warnings are not important or that they should be more subtle???

I spend my time in BCS and it seems the crime is on the rise... I appreciate having some acknowledgment of the criminal activities that I might have to drive through to get me and my possessions to BCS...

I grew up(almost) in Riverside and was a monthly visitor to Ensenada for fishing.... only worried about the beer supply but today...?????

If there is a plan/agenda it is not the U.S. but perhaps the "media"

vgabndo - 5-9-2008 at 10:06 AM

If not all of your SD stations are buying into the fear game, perhaps there is a way to get the truth on the air. TV news is a VERY competitive business. If I were there I think I'd be taking the truth to a station that wanted to pin the tail on the competing donkey so they could show them up for the alarmists they are.

For the same reasons, I won't listen to FOX "news". I've been doing an informal survey. I note each time I scan over their channel and they DON'T say Jerimiah Wright's name. It is astounding how they will try to keep a dead issue alive.

Sort of like all the emphasis on Obama being black, when he is exactly as white as he is black, or the Nomad who refers to him as B. Hussein Obama because he seems to think that that makes him a terrorist or something.

fearful people.jpg - 10kB

tripledigitken - 5-9-2008 at 10:06 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by oldjack
liz...lips...

is it the consensus of the posters that the warnings are not important or that they should be more subtle???



It is the consensus of this poster that a story should make sense. It was supposed to be about recent Kidknappings in Baja Norte. No news on that front. Instead they show a video 6 months old of a robbery of an american family, that were released and no attempt of a ransom. No attempt to make light of that incident on my part, just didn't relate to the headline.

If it was a new incident with new information I would have no problem with it. Instead we get rehashing of isolated events over and over.

Ken

DENNIS - 5-9-2008 at 11:38 AM

As soon as the problems in Baja are solved, and they are far from that, the news of atrocities stands as current affairs. The tourism industry in Baja is relying on the short memory span of the American public and it's right and responsible for news agencys to keep us aware of problem situations that haven't changed and a quiet period between these instances doesn't indicate change. Just because no airliner crashed today doesn't mean airliners don't crash and there is no need for vigilant concern.
Fix the problem and the bad news will stop.

fulano - 5-9-2008 at 12:10 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by tripledigitken
I watch the local news each weekday morning before heading out to work. Today they had a tease about organized kidknapping gangs working Baja Norte. So I stayed around to listen.

The piece started with announcing that the gang members lived stateside in Chula Vista, National City and the Eastlake area.

Then they brought out the tape of Chris Hall's wife talking about their unfortunate experience of being robbed after the Baja 1000 FROM LAST YEAR. Made no mention of when that event occured, implying it was recent, and implying it was a possible kidknapping attempt. No other mention of any other kidknapping incidents recent or otherwise.

Too bad that some TV producer thinks that piecing together 6 month old tape about an incident that wasn't a kidknap for ranson is newsworthy, and has anything to do with their lead story.

Ken


This must be the news piece you are talking about :
http://www.10news.com/news/16207362/detail.html

Your post mischaracterizes the nature of the report, as there is a lot of current information in it that you failed to mention.

Cross-border kidnappings by the numbers
San Diego County residents kidnapped and held in Tijuana, Rosarito Beach and Ensenada:

2008 (year to date 5/6/2008): 9
2007: 26
2006: 11
2005: 10

SOURCE: FBI San Diego office

tripledigitken - 5-9-2008 at 12:31 PM

The news article that you linked did indeed have a lot of information that the 2 min video report did not.

As I said the only incident they reported was the Hall video which wasn't a kidknapping for ransom at all and was 6 months old to boot.

Ken

ELINVESTIG8R - 5-9-2008 at 12:50 PM

As long as the facts they report upon are truthful I do not care how many times they recount the same problem they have already reported upon in the newspapers and television. People need to know what is going on and for some that may be the first they ever heard of the problem.