You may have heard this horrendous story from earlier this month. A woman was raped by a stranger on a commuter train in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Other riders were there. They witnessed it. Some of them even recorded videos of it happening with their cell phones. Yet nobody - not a single witness - called for help or tried to intervene.
While I'm not disagreeing with the premise of this piece, you should know that most of what people think they know about the murder of Kitty Genovese isn't true. The narrative we are familiar with today was mostly made up by sloppy journalists at the time. Neighbors actually did hear her screams and did call the police. More details can be found here: https://nypost.com/2014/02/16/book-reveals-real-story-behind-the-kitty-genovese-murder/
really interesting, Christopher. I had not seen that before. in fact, I remember learning about the Kitty Genovese story in school as an exploration of the Bystander Effect. when I researched it again last week, the ignorance wasn't as clear as I remember it being taught to us. I know there was definitely sloppy journalism, like the newspaper article I posted at the bottom of the piece has the headline that 37 people ignored the screams while the first paragraph talks about 38.
you are right, these new details don't change the premise of the Bystander Effect and the purpose for which I wrote the piece, but it is no less interesting to see how media so easily guides national perspective.
as it turns out, the bystanders in Philadelphia did not take video with their phones like the media claimed.
While I'm not disagreeing with the premise of this piece, you should know that most of what people think they know about the murder of Kitty Genovese isn't true. The narrative we are familiar with today was mostly made up by sloppy journalists at the time. Neighbors actually did hear her screams and did call the police. More details can be found here: https://nypost.com/2014/02/16/book-reveals-real-story-behind-the-kitty-genovese-murder/
really interesting, Christopher. I had not seen that before. in fact, I remember learning about the Kitty Genovese story in school as an exploration of the Bystander Effect. when I researched it again last week, the ignorance wasn't as clear as I remember it being taught to us. I know there was definitely sloppy journalism, like the newspaper article I posted at the bottom of the piece has the headline that 37 people ignored the screams while the first paragraph talks about 38.
you are right, these new details don't change the premise of the Bystander Effect and the purpose for which I wrote the piece, but it is no less interesting to see how media so easily guides national perspective.
as it turns out, the bystanders in Philadelphia did not take video with their phones like the media claimed.