Evil fursuiters want your children! :P

[eric_hinkle]

No, seriously, that's how this is being swung.

Click to view

Even more amusing is the amount of errors in the report about the con and the fandom. Tell me, when did the idea of "getting the facts straight" justup and die in American news reporting? This is almost something I'd expect from the glory days of the 19th century, when they ran exposes like the True

Comments

[brianblackberry]

Usually the tone of the news report when it comes to an older woman with a teenage boy is summed up with the summary of "Nice...!", now suddenly it is all about furry.

I love how they play up the SEX!!! aspect.

[mauser]

Furry has ALWAYS had a sexual undercurrent. Usually more of a riptide. It's silly to pretend otherwise.

I do find it interesting how the fandom has shifted so much from comics and artwork to fursuiting though.

[brianblackberry]

I know there is a sexual side to the fandom, like moist geek fandoms. Face it though, the television news media is very sensationalist and very predictable. They will play up the sex aspect of anything and the more moral panic they can cause out of this the better, because that boosts ratings. The issue is the suggestion that because she is a furry, she did this, even though the whole older women with teenage boys problem is much more endemic and widespread, and furry or any other fandom makes no real difference there when it comes to the cause or size of this problem.

But it sure sounds good, and allows the audience to feel morally superior, when the talking heads say it.

[mauser]

Well, it used to be older con-organizers having sex with younger boys... but fortunately Furry wasn't so much in the news back then. Can't do a story like that today anyway because it would offend a Protected Minority.

I always advocated keeping the media out, but some folks were publicity hounds, and this is what you get. You can do the best you can at damage control, but it's no good if it ends up on the editing room floor. Some like to fancy themselves as Media Relations managers, but all they really accomplish is giving the news crews File Footage for stories like this.

I'm sure everyone a year ago clowning around in their fursuits for the cameras thought it was all going to be innocent fun, but look at how it was used here.

Man, I'm racking up the "I told you so"s lately.

[eric_hinkle]

I always advocated keeping the media out, but some folks were publicity hounds, and this is what you get.

Kage seems to have been handling the media pretty well at AC. At least, the locals like us, especially the restaurants. At the most recent AC, one Pittsburgh cop said he'd rather have 1000 AnthroCons in town as compared to one Steelers game.

[mauser]

That's cops. Reporters would want it the other way around, because weird football fans aren't newsworthy.

Kage handles it, but there are plenty of others who are more than happy to parade for the cameras.

[eric_hinkle]

Kage handles it, but there are plenty of others who are more than happy to parade for the cameras.

All too true.

[eric_hinkle]

I find it incredibly hypocritical that the same media that uses and exploits sex (especially in its nastier or stranger aspects) and has done so for decades, is now affecting pious horror at this.

Hmm, how long until this ends up an episode of Law & Order:SVU?

[brianblackberry]

Well they don't have any ethical or journalistic standard in the mainstream media anymore, so really is anything they do a surprise?

[eric_hinkle]

Well they don't have any ethical or journalistic standard in the mainstream media anymore

Did they ever? There have been responsible and moral journalists, and I like to think that there still are... but journalism itself has always had rather low standards for what's "newsworthy" and how to present it.

is anything they do a surprise?

Not to me, sadly.