There are certainly some crazy things happening in the world. Nevertheless, you can leave it to the news media to take, albeit a bizarre story, and manipulate it to the point that it becomes a community crisis. There’s a word for it. It’s called “exaggeration”.
We found an example of sensational journalistic exaggeration in a story from Jacksonville, Florida. Action News, Jax reported: “A Jacksonville man has been accused of murdering his neighbor’s rooster. A feud between the two has ended in a 30-hour jail stay and a lot of fighting.”
Okay, there appears to have obviously been some kind of feud between neighbors. Said feud clearly involves a barnyard fowl. The report involves one dead rooster. However, the wording used to help “bait an audience” is the actual “accusation” made by Action News.
According to this keenly astute news reporter, said rooster was “murdered”. We’re not joking. That is the exact text release from Action News, Jax. A Jacksonville man “murdered” his neighbor’s pet rooster. There was no indication if the “hen homicide” was “premeditated”.
Understandably, the owner of the deceased rooster was distraught. However, Jason Defelice is convinced that his neighbor killed the pet rooster on purpose. Defelice told Action News, “I lose them to animals, but I was not expecting to lose them to my neighbor. That was like, my friend.”
Okay, we get the idea that Mr. Defelice was fond of his rooster. And facts, yet unknown, may be sufficient to convict Jason Nix of a crime. Nix is the gentleman accused by Action News of “murdering a rooster”. Now, murder or not, Nix says he was “acting in self-defense.”
Said rooster apparently didn’t like Mr. Nix. Nix insisted, “I’m defending myself, you know. I feared for my safety, and the chicken died.” He gave a rather bizarre account of how the whole rooster assassination went down, but the killing doesn’t appear to be premeditated.
Nix said something about “bang, bang, bang, bang, and I turn around, and there’s a chicken out there in the street.” Mr. Nix assured authorities that the rooster’s “neck flared up.” He was immediately concerned about his own well-being.
Nix explained that he reacted in a panic. “So I pick up a stick in the yard, and I try to hit it. But the chicken’s jumping up at me, and I accidentally knocked it in the head, you know? Call it a lucky shot, whatever.”
Now, Nix’s crass feelings over killing his neighbor’s beloved BFR (Best Friend Rooster) were rather insensitive. As Nix explained to Action News, “Chickens die every day, people, at Church’s, Popeye’s, and Kentucky Fried Chicken.”
It seems Mr. Nix isn’t too broken up over bludgeoning his neighbors’ rooster to death. Again, the comical part of this story isn’t necessarily what happened. However, what is comical is a news report twisting a story headline into “the murder of a rooster”. Maybe, it was an assassination?