****Note: This was actually going to be a pretty benign piece, essentially saying “caveat emptor,” until I saw that Thomas has taken the liberty of removing the clarifying links from the photos on commitcrime.com.****
Thomas Ellington, the owner of commitcrime.com did, in fact, email me back last week. I apologize for the delay in updating you folks on this, but I was planning on critiquing his response without actually printing his letter, out of courtesy to him. Since he’s already posted the letter on his blog, I’ll simply assume that he has no qualms with me making his letter public. My original letter to him can be found in the original Terri Schiavo Autopsy Photo Hoax article. Here’s his response:
yeah it’s traffic, this website is my means of income generation.
without it, i don’t eat. i did the photos as they are because they’re
obviously fake, lisa mcphearson is famous in her own right, and if
websites believe it and display it i’m not going to stop them. for
every website that’s displayed them there’s been someone on that
website who’s labeled them as mcphearson and corrected the belief. not
to mention the fact that i have several times prominently displayed a
link to my news blog which also corrects it.the photos on my new blog aren’t intentionally misleading, i switched
the two photos up because i wanted the less offensive one on top, and i
forgot to switch the descriptions. thanks for pointing that out, i’ll
fix it. btw, on the original set of mcphearson photos, the nametag on
her wrist says ‘mcphearson’, not mcpherson. maybe it’s the hospital’s
mistake, i don’t know, but i tend to lean towards their spelling.
thomas
He has since taken down the link to the pictures’ caveat, which used to be in bright red letters on top of the advertised “Terri Schiavo Autopsy Photos” which in my opinion, is pretty despicable. But the fact remains that some people are not interested in bringing you the truth, but instead simply driving traffic to their sites. So you, the average internet user (I know at least twenty of you in the past day have found my site while searching for these supposed “Terri Schiavo Autopsy Photos”) need to be careful about what and who you believe.
The blogging world and internet world in general are full of independent sources of media. Unfourtunately there are an unsavory few who seek to further their own aims rather than reporting the truth. I despise this because it attacks my credibility just as much as it attacks theirs. The bottom line is: look for sources. If you see anything unsourced, be wary of it. This follows for traditional media too. It’s often that the major news (in all aspects) either editorializes or reports things with shoddy sources (e.g. Rathergate, anything on Fox News). You want the correct information, right? I assume so, otherwise you wouldn’t have even taken the time to look up “Terri Schiavo Autopsy Photos.”
Well, if it’s accurate information you want, unfortunately it’s also your responsibility to hold your sources of media responsible for the truth of the information that they provide to you. They’re providing you a service, right? They make tons of money off of advertising to you while you’re getting your news and media from them. They owe it to you to at least give you the truth. But you owe it to yourself to check up on them once in awhile, and if they’re not doing their job right, let them know. (Consequently you can email Thomas from either of his sites. commitcrime.com or ThomasEllington.com.)
I hope you’re listening, Thomas. If not, I hope the people that you’re misleading give you something to listen to.
6 Comments, Comment or Ping
wow
anybody who’s using random websites on the internet like that rotten.com wannabe commitcrime.com as a source of information is probably an idiot anyways and they should be flogged. i think it’s presumptuous to expect joe blow webmaster to be a reputable media source. joe blow webmaster is probably more concerned with paying the rent unlike cnn or msnbc, the proprietors of which are probably doing okay rent-wise.
Apr 11th, 2005
pinkeyedjim
hey, I’m just a normal guy who needs to get the rent paid. I’m not cnn or msnbc either. and I still don’t go around putting up blatantly false or misleading information on my site. take, for instance, my proof of the false pictures, everything was sourced, everything was correct. I didn’t just go and start accusing the guy baselessly. I expect no more from the webmaster of commitcrime.com than I do of myself. I hardly find that presumptuous.
Apr 11th, 2005
wow
all i’m saying is expecting all participants of a medium which is as broad and inclusive as the internet to uniformly uphold standards which established and ethics bound news dissemination services are socially required to do is expecting a bit much. the internet is like a jungle, and not all animals are going to be the noble lion. there’s going to be snakes too, and monkeys and the occasional jackass. the jungle shouldn’t be only lions just because the lion is considered the most noble of creatures. the lion feeds himself in the way he knows how, and the snake feeds himself in the way he knows how. the snake will not anytime soon choose to die of starvation to avoid using a socially unacceptable manner of feeding himself.
personally, i say if nobody’s harmed then it’s just another contribution to the internet that makes the internet cool. those photos are so obviously fake it’s almost ridiculous. i’m betting there wasn’t a lot of people who were fooled by them for very long.
good post and good writing mr pink eyed jim.
Apr 12th, 2005
santo
well the internet may be a jungle, and its true that blogs aren’t exactly the beacon of ethical information, but one would still imagine that outright lies and deceit should be a line not crossed just to drive hits to your website…
good article ‘jim’…
Apr 12th, 2005
wow
the guy put up a link to his blog where he talked about it being a scam, so it’s not really an ‘outright’ lie. although he did take that link down. point being, he doesn’t seem to be trying to scam the entire world out of their innocence. for all we know, 20 years from now thomas ellington might be looked on as the next p.t. barnum. there truely is a sucker born every minute. but imagining there are lines not to be crossed when it comes to the internet is a little naive and pollyann-ish. if anything, the precious seconds/minutes stolen by viewing those pics were redeemed by creating a parallel point of interest in bringing to light this whole lisa mcpherson mess. that’s what i think anyways.
Apr 15th, 2005
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