Jenius to Journalist

To go out and thrash a group--in this case, the local excuse for media/journalism--is to heap deserved criticism on failures. That is commendable because journalists carry a special privilege and thus a special responsibilty in Our society: they are the guardians of Truth.

As I've said before, not "the Truth," but Truth, for often Truth is subjective and only through different viewpoints can one arrive at the core of a Truth. But if those viewpoints are warped, distorted or worse, nonexistent, then We not only lack guardians of Truth, We lack any semblance of Reality.

As The Jenius, I can whale away at topics that suit My fancy in a way that suits My fancy. But as The Journalist--an entirely new role--My fancy is not the yardstick: Truth is. And using that yardstick, tacked onto the many lines of criticism I have written, requires Me to set an example of what a journalist should be. Anything less would brand Me as less than The Jenius and for those who know Me, falling short in anything I attempt is akin to evisceration.

Two current searches for Truth occupy My attention. In one, a mother kidnaps her two children, flees across state lines at least four times, files for divorce and demands compensation to continue sequestering her children from their father, receives the benefit of inattention by Federal and State authorities in two states and has successfully split her family for over a decade.

Not interested? The mother's a psychiatrist with a recorded history of mental and emotional problems who commited perjury several times, at one point seemingly with the Court's knowledge. And both she and the two children--a girl and a boy--are Puerto Rican.

How can a parent simply take his or her children and hide them from their spouse when said spouse isn't a threat to them? How can a person clearly violate Federal law, State laws and defy the legal system and end up receiving their tacit support if not open condoning of a legal and moral crime?

The second involves a deadly contagious disease tracked since an outbreak in 2003. A year later, several reports of meningitis were made across Puerto Rico and in one hospital, in a region where no case had been reported, a three-year old girl comes in with a mild fever and within 24 hours is dead of meningitis. The hospital refuses to properly state her symptoms, so no official report is made and the grieving parents--young, struggling to make ends meet--are left unaided by the hospital or the legal system in their search for an answer to their dreadful loss.

Move forward to 2006. Though no public reports on meningitis circulate as they did in 2004, seven deaths in one region are caused by symptoms very similar to meningitis. Three are children between the ages of 4 and 11; four adults younger than 38 appear to be in the same group. And six of them have died in the same hospital where a three-year old died in 2004...two of the deaths coming six days apart.

With a Forensic Science agency so utterly overwhelmed by crises and incompetence that its director resigned and a replacement is to be named, what potential health hazards are looming ahead, here on this Island where medical facilities are deficient and doctors are leaving in droves?

Will I find a Truth or several Truths in these cases? Maybe. I'm limited by time and by My wide range of other professional commitments in these searches. That I deem them important is proven by their mention here: I'm staking a claim and illuminating My basic point of what I think journalism should be. Neither of these stories has received any local coverage (except for the smaller outbreak of meningitis, as mentioned above) and they involve an element I made clear was part of My focus, namely family. I'm sure that if I don't do something about these cases, no one else will.

So I have to try.


The Jenius Has Spoken.