Christian music star born without arms arrested on child porn charges
www.the-independent.com
Sheptock was arrested while he was ministering at a nearby women’s prison

Jon Paul Sheptock, 49, served as the worship minister at the First Montgomery Baptist Church in Texas before these shocking allegations came to light.

The Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Unit eventually caught up with the suspect while he was working at a local women’s prison where he served as a minister.

At a Donald Trump rally in January 2022, Sheptock was recruited to sing the national anthem before later posing with the president and his son for pictures.

  • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
    31·
    2 days ago

    Have you considered that the media you are (or allow yourself to be) exposed to, plays a part in that?

    As an example, this took literal seconds to find, and it’s an article from this month:

    A North Carolina state House member has been charged with sex-related crimes involving a teenager earlier this year, court records show.

    Six-term Democratic state Rep. Cecil Brockman, 41, of High Point, was arrested Wednesday on two counts each of statutory sexual offense with a child and taking indecent liberties with a child, according to a magistrate’s order detailing his arrest.

    I bet you’ve never heard of this person, or ever saw this article, right?

    Before I explicitly looked, I hadn’t either. But it’s not that it was hidden, really, just that it’s not the data the algorithms put in front of my eyes, without me having to go seek it. Don’t underestimate the impact these algorithms have on what you’re made aware of, and how that controlled exposure can shape, or warp, your sense of reality.

    I’ll never forget that graph that showed the comparison of how much violent crime had decreased over the years in the US, juxtaposed with public perception of violent crime rates literally rising in inverse proportion over the same period of time, thanks to mainstream media sensationalism. Ever since that day, I’ve tried to keep myself from making assumptions about how common something is, based on how often it’s reported on, especially when it comes to controversial/shocking subjects like these, as those are the ones where there is the most temptation for an outlet to sensationalize.