Post by Smurfette Principle on May 16, 2011 14:54:38 GMT -5
According to the Houston Press.
Obviously some people were seriously offended by this, so they posted an apology.
I rather like this apology - it is certainly better than most public fauxpologies.
An article about the story is here.
You probably would not be too surprised to learn that the vast majority of people in the Texas Department of Public Safety's sex offender list are male.
And most are not good-looking.
But there are females on there, too. Most of them are not good-looking, true, but who takes a good mugshot besides Tom DeLay?
We combed through 15 of the biggest counties in Texas and came up with the ten hottest women in the database. Warning: In some cases, we picked out the best of a series of mugshots. Alternative choices were starkly different. So click on each link before you send any marriage proposals.
And most are not good-looking.
But there are females on there, too. Most of them are not good-looking, true, but who takes a good mugshot besides Tom DeLay?
We combed through 15 of the biggest counties in Texas and came up with the ten hottest women in the database. Warning: In some cases, we picked out the best of a series of mugshots. Alternative choices were starkly different. So click on each link before you send any marriage proposals.
Obviously some people were seriously offended by this, so they posted an apology.
Our item about the "10 hottest women" on Texas' sex offender list has understandably generated a lot of controversy.
Here was the genesis of the idea. Last week I spoke to two veteran child-porn prosecutors for a Q&A on how they do their jobs -- how they deal with looking at such horrific evidence -- and how parents can protect their children from being exploited.
They talked of how child predators don't fit any category -- the people they prosecuted included successful lawyers and doctors, as well as unemployed losers.
It triggered an idea about how people have a preconceived notion of what dangerous predators "always" look like -- slovenly fat guys in T-shirts asking kids if they wanted a ride -- and how best to shake that notion up.
An item on "10 sex offenders who don't look like sex offenders" might have done the trick, but seemed boring.
In an attempt to catch attention (and yes, eyeballs and clicks), I thought of the ten hottest female sex offenders. "Hottest" because it's a Web-headline staple for such listicles.
I also wrote an over-the-top intro, trusting that the outrageous headline (Anything putting "hottest" near "sex offenders," I thought, would clearly show over-the-topness) would indicate this was fully intended to shock.
That's why I made the conscious decision to include the victims' ages: To show that "normal-looking" people, people you could pass any day on the street -- or who you might think are "hot" -- are capable of monstrous things.
Glamorizing or trivializing child rape? It did not cross my mind that I was doing that. It should have, it now seems clear.
That was never the intent. I hope that would be obvious, but it seems not.
No one ever likes apologies to "anyone who was offended" because they seem halfhearted. I can only say the intention was to shock (in what I hoped would be a positive way) and not to offend. To a lot of people, I failed miserably. I can understand that, and I apologize to them.
Here was the genesis of the idea. Last week I spoke to two veteran child-porn prosecutors for a Q&A on how they do their jobs -- how they deal with looking at such horrific evidence -- and how parents can protect their children from being exploited.
They talked of how child predators don't fit any category -- the people they prosecuted included successful lawyers and doctors, as well as unemployed losers.
It triggered an idea about how people have a preconceived notion of what dangerous predators "always" look like -- slovenly fat guys in T-shirts asking kids if they wanted a ride -- and how best to shake that notion up.
An item on "10 sex offenders who don't look like sex offenders" might have done the trick, but seemed boring.
In an attempt to catch attention (and yes, eyeballs and clicks), I thought of the ten hottest female sex offenders. "Hottest" because it's a Web-headline staple for such listicles.
I also wrote an over-the-top intro, trusting that the outrageous headline (Anything putting "hottest" near "sex offenders," I thought, would clearly show over-the-topness) would indicate this was fully intended to shock.
That's why I made the conscious decision to include the victims' ages: To show that "normal-looking" people, people you could pass any day on the street -- or who you might think are "hot" -- are capable of monstrous things.
Glamorizing or trivializing child rape? It did not cross my mind that I was doing that. It should have, it now seems clear.
That was never the intent. I hope that would be obvious, but it seems not.
No one ever likes apologies to "anyone who was offended" because they seem halfhearted. I can only say the intention was to shock (in what I hoped would be a positive way) and not to offend. To a lot of people, I failed miserably. I can understand that, and I apologize to them.
I rather like this apology - it is certainly better than most public fauxpologies.
An article about the story is here.