Open Letter to the News

(In the interest of full disclosure, this letter is not genuine. It was never sent. None of the events described in the letter actually happened. On the other hand, all of the news items referenced are genuine news items from one source.)

Dear Channel 5 News,

I wanted to write and thank you for your hard-hitting news reporting. Your headlines and no-nonsense investigative reporting has, without exaggeration, changed my life. Because of you, I am in a completely different place today.

For instance, you did that piece on how people were stealing identities at gas station card readers. I immediately stopped using my debit card at gas stations and only used cash. But you had a follow up story about how easy it is for people to steal your identity at any card reader, and so I stopped using the card altogether. My wife gave me grief about that, of course, but it was important to me that we not get ripped off. And when you ran that story about how inaccurate some of those price scanners were, I insisted that we stop going to stores that used price scanners and only used low tech stores. Sure, it was more expensive, but you have to be safe, you know? Then you did that exposé on the hackers that broke into the bank databases. Well, it didn't take me long to empty my accounts. No more identity theft for me.

Of course, my wife wouldn't have stood for that last step, but your other stories changed all that. When a predator broke in and shot her, I knew better than to call an ambulance because of your investigation into how unsafe the ambulance services were in our area. And you had recently aired that investigation on how unreliable the police department was in investigating major crimes, so I didn't bother calling them, either. My wife died because I couldn't get her to a trustworthy emergency room on my own without the ambulance to take her. (I couldn't remember which one in the area you said could be trusted.) I didn't notify the family that she had died either because they would all have wanted to fly in to her funeral service and you ran that story about how unsafe it was to fly these days. Wouldn't want to endanger the rest of my family, would I?

Well, of course, the police found out and didn't really understand my reasoning and didn't believe that I didn't trust ambulances and police and felt like my withdrawal of all our funds was somewhat questionable and that it was extremely odd that I would fail to tell anyone about it, so they charged me with her murder. Today I'm safe and sound in the penitentiary serving a life sentence. No more fear of identity theft or ambulances or unsafe flying. You've revolutionized my life. Thanks so much.

Sincerely,
A Fan