Runners-up for Sept ’05: the media’s unawareness of alcoholism in sexual predators; plus sports stars (Milton Bradley) and animal abusers
Runners-up for top story of the month: Reporting on the tragedy in New Orleans while failing to identify the role that alcohol and other drug addiction may have played is hardly unique. The media completely ignored addiction in the reports of the Joseph Edward Duncan lll kidnapping of Shasta Groene and the murder of her brothers Dylan and Slade, the children's mother Brenda, and Brenda's boyfriend, Mark McKenzie, which occurred in June. An article in the August 5 Los Angeles Times may have been the first to disclose the fact that in 1994, after serving over 14 years for a 1980 rape of a 14-year-old boy, Duncan was released with the proviso that he abstain from alcohol and other drugs. ...
