Bad Mothering or Bad Journalism??!

pstrongWhat happened to make a low incomebr / mother place her children, agesbr / 9 and 13, in a near deadlybr / hot storage garage unit? /strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/434/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby PNN staff/p p The barking coming from a Casselberry, Fla., rental storage unit told passers-by that something was inside the unit, something alive.br / But when management summoned animal control and cut the lock, they didn't just find a dog — they found two children as well./p pPolice say the kids — a 13-year-old boy and a 9-year-old girl — complained that they had no food and water, and had been living in the unit, just north of Orlando, for about two months. /p pInside the 20-by-12 self-storage room, the children were surrounded by household items, including a bed, a refrigerator and abr / fan. /p pBut officials say the unit had no running water, no toilet and no air conditioning. Temperatures inside may have approached 100br / degrees during the day. /p pMom Arrested; Says She Had No Choice/p p Police arrested the kids' mother, 30-year-old Adrianne Tijuana Johnson, who said she worked at an Orlando hospital and hadbr / no choice but to leave her kids in the rental unit while she went off to work. /p p "I had no other choice than to leave my children by themselves," she told reporters as she was led off by police. /p pHowever, The Associated Press reported that the hospital says she doesn't work there, and state records showed nobr / professional license issued under her name. /p pJenny Tyler, who rents a space nearby, said she heard the barking from the unit and alerted management. But she was unprepared for what they found inside. /p p"I imagine those kids being locked up all day long," she said. /p pOfficials say the dangers are not just limited to the sweltering Florida heat. The unit had a propane tank, a small gas stove and a barbecue lighter. If a fire broke out, the children would have been trapped. /p pJohnson is charged with two counts of aggravated child abuse and one count of animal cruelty. She reportedly paid about $137 per month for the unit. /p pb****************/b/p pPNN Staff comments:/p pThis mother's story looks and sounds to PNN staff like another example of bad mainstream journalism, i.e., instead of delving deeper into why and how Ms. Jenny Tyler ended up placing her two children in a potential death trap, they have condemed her to the label of "bad mother"/p pThese are some of the questions the staff of POOR Magazine Have asked: /p p1)Where is the father if there is/was one? br /br / br /2)Did Ms. J. Tyler ask for help or was she alone?br / br /br /3)When did she begin falling through Florida’s cracks?br / br /br /br / 4)How is Welfare Reform's policy of "get-a-job any job" impacting on Forida's working poor?/p pbr /br /5)When did the background on the Tyler family begin?br /br //p p6)Is this really even investigative reporting br /- starting from name calling bad mothering skills, or updated yellow journalism? /p p7)Is taking Ms. Tyler’s children away the only answer or are there other alternatives?br /br /8)How many other single mom or dad families continue falling through the broken net of family care?/p pPoor Magazine calls it iYellow Journalism/i because the press reverts to the easy process of name calling Ms. Tyler and blaming working poor or homeless folks instead of looking at our free fall econony which offers no support or long-term economic solutions like free housing and living wage jobs for poor parents and childrenbr / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p