Scary...

I found this article at cnn.com. The title- "Washington State Killer Captured After Field Trip Escape", definitely caught my attention. Basically, what happened was, on a field trip to a fair, Phillip Paul, a legally insane murderer who was a patient at the Eastern State Hospital, escaped from the group, hitched a ride away from the fair, and was out free in public. The police did eventually find and take him back into custody- but what I want to highlight about this article is its effectiveness in informing the public.
In a situation like this, where a part of our government has not affectively done its job, in this case- protecting the public from a dangerous killer, I believe the media has preformed to the best of its ability. The public deserves to know what is going on- good or bad. I think this illustrates how the media does act as a check and balance for our government. When they screw up- the public is obligated to find out, and, in this case, the media has served its purpose in informing facts very well.
The end of the article tells that policy changes are being put into action so that problems like this can't happen again. I think that the media adds extra incentives for problems in the country to be fixed quickly. Now the public knows what happened- the problem will be fixed faster, I believe, than if no one ever knew about what happened. Over all- I believe this article did its job without over-doing it as is so common in the media today.... Here's the link: http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/09/20/washington.escaped.killer/index.html