Podcast 557-Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show #47. Kitty Genovese was murdered on a street in Kew Gardens, Queens New York in 1964. She is famous because the New York Times ran a story that scores of witnesses saw Kitty stabbed by an assailant, and did nothing. Fifty years later her younger brother Bill Genovese did the legwork the New York Times did not do and guess what? It turns out the idea that decent people would ignore a woman being attacked and killed on the street in a major city turns out to be a myth. New York Times editor Abe Rosenthal thought it would help people to tell the story the way his paper told it. In fact as the new documentary ‘The Witness‘ shows, the idea that people would stand by and do nothing ended up having devastating consequences for Kitty’s brother Bill. No spoilers here, but a great piece of work from a citizen journalist who decided to get to the bottom of the story; something apparently the New York Times couldn’t do for fifty years. Or 60 minutes. Or dramas like Perry Mason and Law and Order, all perpetuated the myth no one did anything while Ms. Genovese, 28 was being murdered. It’s a great illustration of the fact that while we live in a supposedly modern society, we’re constantly told lies disguised as myths because an editor or producer or reporter somewhere decided it would ‘help people’, or because they’re lazy, or because it’s clickbait. If you want to know why Election 2016 is based on lies, fairy tales and myth, why the issues are fake, the candidates and the political parties are fake, ‘The Witness’ is a good place to start. Realizing the media is complicit in creating myths no less powerful than the old oral histories passed down by shaman and story tellers around the campfire, through family, clan and tribe, one wonders what it takes to get to the facts in a case. Fact is, most of the time all it takes is some time and shoe leather to check the source material and talk to people on the front lines. Does our media do that? No, it’s much cheaper and easier to sit in an air condition studio in Times Square, with a roundtable of other people who know nothing, telling everyone else what they should be thinking and doing. What implications does this modern myth making (called story-lines) have? How can you make good decisions with bad data? Welcome to 1984. Sponsored by X Government Cars and Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul.

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