Greg Kelley And Walter Mcmilli The Positive Impact Of The Media

The media can be aggravating, they are constantly in someone’s business. But sometimes the media can have a positive impact on situations. In the cases of Greg Kelley and Walter McMillian the media actually had a positive impact on the results. The cases were very similar, botched investigations, little to no evidence, falsely accused, and a rally of support. When these cases were looking bleak the media stepped in and boosted the cases to the public. Allowing the facts to be recognized, and the lies to be revealed. Walter McMillian was from a small town. He was very successful on his own, he was respected. Until he started sleeping with a white woman. People started to frown upon him, ultimately making him an easy target. He was falsely accused

Greg Kelley had people from his high school backing him up, parents, friends. Everyone was so in shock that he was accused of doing something like that. They all thought he was a role model. Walter’s case was little different. He was respected in the work field, but made some decisions that not everyone agreed with. When he started sleeping with the white woman, people started to judge his character. But when he got accused of a crime he didn’t do, all of his friends and family rallied behind him in support. Both of these cases needed support from the public because that allowed for some key witnesses to be introduced into the case. The public allowed their voice to be heard when the trials were happening. The media influenced the public by allowing others to hear the story and decide if they want to support the accused. A news channel can give all they know on the case and then the citizens can decide if they are buying the story or not. “The New York Times covered his exoneration and homecoming in a front-page story. We were flooded with media requests,” (Stevenson 242). The text from the book shows how much the media gets interested/invested in cases, especially when the justice system was incorrect. They do this so the public knows about the case and it provides a form of entertainment for the community. Greg Kelley was a little different. He avoided interviews in the beginning, but recently he’s been in a

The investigators didn’t even look into the other evidence and based the case off of traumatized 4-year-olds. They didn’t even look into Jonathan McCarty who had a previous criminal history. The prosecutors had no physical evidence against Greg Kelley. After 12 hours of debate the jury decided that Kelley was guilty of 2 accounts of aggravated sexual assault to a child. He got 25 years without the possibility of parole. When the community heard about this there was an outcry. They were angry at the police departments investigations, they were mad that there was no physical evidence, they were mad that there was no looking into Jonathan McCarty. All during the trial the media was posting updates or interviewing different people. The media influenced the public by keeping them updating 24/7 during the trial. They always knew what was going on during the trail. They knew that they had little to no evidence against Greg Kelley. Walter McMillian not only had to deal with being accused with little to no evidence but also had to deal with racism. During the trial, he was threatened with lynching and was faced with racism in the law enforcement. “Walter would report for years that all he heard throughout his arrest, over and over again, was the word nigger. ‘Nigger this,’ ‘nigger that,’ followed by insults and threats of lynching,” (Stevenson 48). When the media started to get involved with the case they weren’t too concerned about