More Manny Castillo exploitation and disinformation

Manny Castillo archive:
Fri. May 11
Sat. May 12
Mon. May 14
Tue. May 15
Wed. May 16
Sat. May 19


Journalists continue to pull "facts" out of their arses and muddy the waters in the Manny Castillo tragedy.

Last weekend saw Laura Robinson step up to a Ottawa Citizen soap-box and use the young man's death to score thoughtless cheap shots about ice-hockey and violence against women.

Now City-TV News is piling on and exploiting Manny in a lede to a completely unrelated gun-shot murder:

Teen Allegedly Killed Over Prank

City TV News
Thursday May 24, 2007

Less than two weeks ago Toronto heard the tragic story of Manny Castillo, a 15-year-old boy who died after an incident on the sidelines at a Lorne Park Secondary School rugby game. Now, another senseless act that took place on the grounds of a North York high school has claimed the life of another young boy.

Jordan Manners was killed on Wednesday after being shot to death at C.W. Jeffrey's Collegiate at Sentinel Road in the Keele-Finch area. [...]

Again, the only fact we know for sure is that Manny Castillo is dead. Please read the archive above for the pertinent (read: vague and confusing) details that have been dripping out. The "fact" that Castillo's death had anything to do with a "senseless act" or "vigilante justice" has not been established to any measurable degree. Yet City-TV doesn't hesitate to elevate Castillo's on-field death to the level of a homicide by firearm.

From all the reports so far released - many of them conflicting - it's apparent that the chances are 50/50 that Castillo died as a result of an accident, perhaps compounded by head trauma impacted by a concussion a month earlier. A responsible journalist should, at the very least, err on the side of caution before convicting another boy in the court of public opinion. It's a good thing the supposed "vigilante" in this so-called "senseless act" has his name suppressed, because the hyperventilating news media here already has a noose around the kid's neck.

City-TV also provides a new scoop, casually tossed in this completely unrelated firearm murder story, informing us that Castillo was killed "on the sidelines." That's a new wrinkle that hasn't been divulged before.

C'mon media guys, get your story straight.

Was it a scrum? Or was it an incident on the sidelines?

Perhaps we should wait until we get a referee's report and hear the results of the police investigation before typing news with our hair on fire.

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