One of the frustrating aspects of operating a news organization that doesn’t fear any powers-that-be is watching other media organizations who bow and scrape to the powers-that-be reporting half the story.
Jennifer Murbarger
It’s not that the material isn’t available; we learn that later, when we go to ask authorities very pointed questions, and they give us direct, straightforward answers. So the fault lies often in “favoring” a particular agency…which is always a mistake, because those agencies work for US, not the other way around. Any taxpayer-funded entity in this state (or country, actually) answers to the people, and they especially answer to the media. But some entities have really gotten into the rut of thinking that they DON’T…and one of those is the Illinois State Police. This, in turn, has engendered an entire contingent of media outlets who believe that they should only report the dribs and drabs that ISP doles out…and not ask the hard questions of anyone, including peripheral agencies that might help.
A good example of this degradation in reporting comes from our first Read the Lead for the day, wherein we fill in the blanks that ALL other media outlets overlooked…and while the complete story isn’t there yet, if it’s ever found out, you know at least we’ll publish it. In the meantime, here’s “Murbarger drowning leaves many perplexed“:
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WAYNE CO.—The death of a state trooper’s wife has left a cloud of confusion in its wake, as there are little to no answers as to why and how the woman ended up where she was that she drowned in the early morning hours of Friday, December 27.
Jennifer Murbarger, 42, of Fairfield, was the victim of apparent hypothermia after her car went off in backwaters of the Elm River Creek where it passes through north Jasper Township.
Official reports incomplete
Official reports indicate that Murbarger, wife of ISP officer Jayson Murbarger, called her husband from her cell phone in the early morning hours of that date to report that she was stranded in backwater. However, she could not give her exact location, as she told him she “didn’t know” where she was precisely.
Reports continued that instead of staying with her car, she apparently tried to walk out of the backwaters, but was overcome by the cold water.
When there was no response from her upon subsequent attempts, a rescue effort was made that included a state police airplane outfitted with FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared, in order to pick up heat signatures), which found Murbarger’s body beneath ice not far from her stranded vehicle, this occurring in the hours between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m.
Her body was ultimately recovered and taken to Fairfield Memorial Hospital, where Murbarger was pronounced dead at 8:45.
Also, incorrect
It appeared, however, that that’s as far as local media was willing to look into it.
The basics of the matter were even delivered incorrectly (the backwater wasn’t from the Little Wabash River, which was considerably east of the location of the incident), and the exact location where Murbarger’s vehicle was actually found was never given, in what appeared to be a hastily-thrown-together brief covering the event that could have gone a long way toward ISP’s campaign of “turn around, don’t drown” in floodwaters that were occurring following first a massive snowfall at the beginning of the month, then a huge amount of rain that melted it all off.
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