Posted on 09/22/2011 7:30:08 PM PDT by moonshinner_09
MISSION — A family’s desperate call from Guatemala led authorities to a stash house where more than a dozen illegal immigrants were held for ransom, police said.
Mission police received the call from the Guatemalan family late Wednesday morning, saying their loved one was being held captive somewhere in the city.
Investigators tracked a cellphone number given by the family to a house near the intersection of 4 1/2 Mile North and Moorefield roads, Assistant Police Chief Martin Garza said.
“Their families had already transferred money to these suspects,” he said. “We’re talking about a very well-organized crime that was taking place.”
(Excerpt) Read more at themonitor.com ...
I’m not diminishing the importance of the tragedy that is human trafficking, but I am appalled at the failure of fundamental journalism in this article. Mission? Would that be in Pennsylvania or Ohio, Texas, Alabama, etc? Not everyone knows where Mission is. The only clue in the whole article is Hidalgo county. That is in Texas., I believe. Then again how many general readers on the Internet know that?
In the local newspaper you might be able to assume the readership understands the WHERE part of who, what, where, when, and why. But on the Internet where the readership is not local, the where is elementary.
(Sorry, I’m not ranting at you. This is just one of my pet peeves.)
Smuggling a relative to the US is an investment by a family in the third world. They expect money to come back and they are hoping that eventually there will be a legal status that will allow more of them to immigrate.
Our policy of eventual amnesty and chain family immigration encourages this thinking. We need to kill off any possibility of amnesty and chain migration if we expect to keep our country.
Ping!
It drives me crazy when they don’t say where things happen- you would think they would realize the internet spreads their stories near and far. Just to be more confusing there is also a Hidalgo County in New Mexico and it is on the border. There is no town of Mission in NM in Hidalgo County though so I do think you are right about this being in TX.
One of my pet peeves is people who post stupid responses. If you click on the link you will clearly see a click that says home page. Click on it. You will also see a weather map. Click on it. It’s not too difficult. You can even click the sports link to figure out where this is.
So there is no responsibility to provide clarity in the article?
You right I was wondering Mission is where ,until, I saw, Hidalgo county, than knew it is out of Texas.
Look at the topics line. Click on the weather link. Quit posting stupid responses. It clutters the post.
Amazing. We have people on FR who attack you for failing to post every single word of an article inside FR so that people don’t have to click anything. Now we have someone who thinks it is perfectly good journalistic form to have to hunt through other links in an external article to figure out where it’s from.
I have another pet peeve. People who accuse other posters of stupidity for raising a simple question. Save the ad hominem attacks for your spouse.
There are many ways for them to pay for their travel to the U.S. There is a handy dandy credit system where family here is supposed to pay when they arrive here and if not they are held until ransom is paid. If the ransom is not paid I am pretty sure the person doesn’t stay healthy very long. Sometimes the money is paid and the smugglers want more than agreed upon. The family in Guatamala likely did not have the money so that is why out of desperation they called for help. Some also pay their way by smuggling in drugs. Some pay their way by basically selling themselves into slavery- agreeing to work or do criminal acts to pay for their trip. It is a very creative system.
I guess you think reporters have no need to include important details in their articles. Many articles are shared by email without links so reporters should not depend on people being able to go through the site and look for weather maps to find out where things happen.
I for one don’t have time to investigate each time reporters fail to tell us location. It is of course possible to find out by doing additional steps- but if a reporter is doing their job there is no need to do that. The pet peeve is not that we can’t figure it out, the peeve is that the reporter did a poor job of including important information.
Let me guess, you all don't bother to click on links. You just start posting from the excerpt.
Good grief.
I did click through. I read the entire article. I went to the home page of the “Monitor”. I several links from the page. If a local journalist is going to place this kind of article on, let’s see, the WORLD WIDE web, perhaps they should consider that their readers might be from somewhere other than the local supermarket.
Feeling a bit cranky tonight, are we? You didn’t write the article did you?
Seriously. I have not one clue where "Mission" is. Probably Southeast Asia, maybe Ontario.
Here's the topics line:
Corruption; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; US: Texas; Click to Add Topic
Where is the weather link?
Quit posting stupid responses. It clutters the postI
And yours don't?
Location is basic information in any news article, and you have no idea how often articles are written that leave out location. Many places have the same or similiar names so how hard is it to at least add the two letter postal abbreviation for the state?
I have read articles in emails or on sites with no link that were nearly impossible to determine location. It is irritating to say the least. I live near Hidalgo County in New Mexico and there is also one in Texas. Both are on the border and it can be pretty confusing. I was not just complaining about this article not including the information- I am complaining about a pattern of sloppy reporting.
If you are so worried about a thread being cluttered- you have cluttered this thread as much as anyone I have seen lately. You seem to not comprehend that some of us think reporters should do their job.
Look at the topics
If you bothered to click on the link there is a weather click. Click on it.
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