CROSBY TOWN MEETING

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CROSBY TOWN MEETING

• MAY 29, 2007
• 700 PM

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(No Transcript)
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• KRIV May 16, 2007
• FOX 26 News
• P O Box 22810
• Houston, Texas 77227
• Dear Mr. Bebel,
• As the Crosby/Huffman Chamber of Commerce, we
  are outraged at a recent report aired on Fox 26
  concerning sexual predators in Crosby. We are
  not an incorporated town and do not have a
  governing agent. We do have a Chamber of
  Commerce, which comes as close to a formal
  organization representing the town as exists.
  Accordingly, the Chamber has been asked by many
  businesspeople and residents of Crosby to
  formally voice our complaints with the gross
  distortion of the facts in your recent news
  story.
• Your reporter, Carolyn Canville, reported that
  one out of thirty Crosby residents is a sexual
  predator. Aside from making a great headline,
  her report has absolutely no basis in fact. The
  very fact that she chose to call them sexual
  predators rather than, as the State of Texas
  calls them, registered sex offenders, seems to
  reinforce the point that her focus was more on
  drama than fact. The word predators sounding
  so much more intense and fear provoking.
• We can understand that an inexperienced reporter
  might make such a mistake, hopefully to be
  corrected by someone screening such things, but
  when a two time Emmy winner reports something as
  fact that is on its face ridiculous, we have to
  step in and take action. Ms. Canville reported
  that Crosby has a population of some 1700 people,
  and that there are 63 registered sex offenders
  living in Crosby, making the ratio of sex
  offenders to residents approximately one in
  thirty.
• To come up with her numbers, Ms. Canville used
  different geographic areas for comparison. She
  took the number of registered sex offenders for
  the much larger geographic area served by the
  Crosby zip code, 77532, and compared that number
  with the total population of the significantly
  smaller geographical area comprised of an area
  called Crosby CDP by the Federal Census Bureau
  (please see the enclosed maps).
• The Census Bureau does report the total
  population of the larger geographic area served
  by the Crosby zip code, 77532. Had Ms. Canville
  any interest in reporting the facts, she would
  have used that number, which is 20,143. However,
  63 sex offenders in a population of 20,143 is not
  nearly as news-worthy as 63 sex offenders in a
  population of 1714. And this is still with using
  population data from 7 years ago compared to the
  sex offender registry of 2007, so even those
  numbers are askew.
• In reality, there are 5 registered sex offenders
  who report residence addresses within the smaller
  Crosby CDP area. The actual ratio in the smaller
  Crosby CDP area is 1343. The actual ratio in
  the larger Crosby zip code area is 1320.
  Nothing near the 130 Ms. Canville would have us
  believe.

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• When this report was aired, we were of course
  shocked. Intuitively, we knew that one in thirty
  of us were not registered sex offenders. For
  that to be true there would have to be a sex
  offender on every block, in every subdivision.
  Every class would have a parent who was a sex
  offender, and every church would have many
  members who were sex offenders. We are a very
  pleasant, suburban community. We have an active
  sports league for the kids, an active rodeo
  association, many churches, and many residents
  who have lived here for a long period of time.
  To our knowledge, while we have our share of
  ice-houses, we dont even have any sexually
  oriented businesses in Crosby. The community is
  very family oriented.
• Not according to FOX News. We are the sex
  offender capital of Texas. You cant go to
  Wal-Mart without running into them. Ms. Canville
  wisely attributed this fact to the lack of our
  own police force. We rely instead on the Harris
  County Sheriffs Department. Another
  unsubstantiated slam. In fact, the Harris County
  Sheriffs Department and Precinct 3 Constables
  provide excellent service to our area. We have
  several very devoted deputies and constables who
  patrol this area around the clock and who know
  many of our residents personally.
• Several of our residents contacted Ms. Canville
  as well as Mr David Steinhart to ask that the
  gross distortions she published about our town be
  corrected. They refused. Ms. Canville either
  doesnt understand the math, or has a greater
  interest in another Emmy.
• You can understand our frustration. We dont
  have an evening news show on which to publish our
  version of the facts. This is our home, and you
  have apparently spent very little time in
  collecting misinformation which you
  unhesitatingly used to damage our image to an
  unsuspecting viewing area. This type of
  reporting is not only frustrating but provokes
  unsubstantiated fear in our community, deters
  people from moving to our area and is potentially
  detrimental to our economic growth, a high price
  to pay so that someone can win another award.
• We do not intend to let this go. We have tried
  to work with you to no avail. We are calling a
  community meeting, and inviting other news
  organizations from around the area. We are
  inviting our elected officials and are in the
  process of contacting some of the other area
  communities which you seem bent on defaming as
  well. We dont have a news station but we do
  have voices.
• You have an obligation as a member of the Fifth
  Estate to use your enormous power carefully. You
  have clearly abused that power. As a result, we
  are asking for the resignation of Ms Canville and
  anyone else responsible for the research and
  airing of this report. We are also requesting a
  public retraction of the story and correction of
  the facts on no less than one broadcast at each
  time slot FOX 26 airs the News along with some
  form of positive media story pertaining to our
  community.
• Shame on you. Shame on Ms. Canville and anyone
  else who had any responsibility for letting a
  story so facially preposterous on the air, and
  then in continuing to allow it repeat time and
  again on your Web site. Your interest in
  collecting more awards to sit on your shelves has
  dwarfed your responsibility to the community you
  are supposed to serve.

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SPECIFIC CITIES/TOWNSVSPOPULATION DATA FOR
RESIDENTSUSING CITY/TOWN AS ADDRESS
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Sex Offender to Residents Ratio
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E-MAIL REPLY CONCERNING POSTING CORRECTED STORY
ON WEBSITE

• -----Original Message-----From Carolyn Canville
  mailtocanville_at_fox26.com Sent Tuesday, May
  22, 2007 505 PMTo Juli HainSubject Re
  Corrected Report
• Juli,
•  
• I checked with my news director, and she says the
  correction cannot be put on the website.  The
  story is no longer on the site.   We ran the
  correction on each of our newscasts but she
  doesn't feel putting the correction up now is
  appropriate.
•  
• I'm sorry, and I do hope you understand..
•  
• Carolyn
•