{"id":7202,"date":"2014-11-23T17:07:38","date_gmt":"2014-11-23T17:07:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=7202"},"modified":"2014-11-23T17:07:38","modified_gmt":"2014-11-23T17:07:38","slug":"ferguson-mo-waits-amid-tension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=7202","title":{"rendered":"Ferguson, Mo., waits … amid tension"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Allow me to pose what I believe is a fair question: Are the media contributing to the tension that has gripped a small Missouri suburban community by the throat?<\/p>\n

Much of the nation is awaiting a grand jury decision on whether to indict a white police officer who shot a black teenager to death in the St. Louis suburb.<\/p>\n

At issue is whether the grand jury will indict Officer Darren Wilson for his role in the shooting of Michael Brown.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2014\/11\/22\/us\/ferguson-grand-jury-five-things\/index.html?hpt=hp_t2<\/p>\n

Honest to goodness, I have no clue as to whether Wilson committed a crime, or whether the grand jury is going to indict him. The case has drawn considerable — and intense — attention from many Americans who live far from the town.<\/p>\n

The case spawned disturbances in its aftermath. Now, the grand jury’s pending decision has folks on edge.<\/p>\n

All the cable and broadcast news networks have staked out the place. They’re providing non-stop, 24\/7 coverage of it. Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has declared a state of emergency and has deployed the National Guard in case<\/em> all hell breaks loose once the panel makes its decision public.<\/p>\n

My concern here is that the media attention only feeds the unease and well could prompt a violent response if the grand jury, for example, returns a no-bill — meaning that Wilson would not be prosecuted for any crime.<\/p>\n

Of course a violent demonstration would be a shameful response. Michael Brown’s father has called for calm and for that he is to be saluted. I would hope the community would heed the wise words of a grieving father.<\/p>\n

I also wish the media would find a way to report these stories without such apparent breathlessness. I hope for the best, but fear\u00a0the worst.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n

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Allow me to pose what I believe is a fair question: Are the media contributing to the tension that has gripped a small Missouri suburban community by the throat? Much of the nation is awaiting a grand jury decision on whether to indict a white police officer who shot a black teenager to death in … Continue reading Ferguson, Mo., waits … amid tension<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[796,1719,3019],"class_list":["post-7202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","tag-cable-news","tag-ferguson-mo","tag-michael-brown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7202\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}