Written by Katie Jeffries, Good Morning Jacksonville anchor.
Children's lives are more important than a football game. Period. End of story.
I feel like that is something that shouldn't have to be stated, but apparently it does.
Sunday evening an Amber Alert went out for Braxton and Bri'yah Williams, 6 and 5 years old respectively, and we put a 'crawl' with pertinent information at the bottom of the screen alerting the community.
Yes, that crawl was up during Sunday Night Football, as it should have been, and some people were mad about it.
"Why did you continue to show the crawler about the missing kids? It went on for hours. Really became a nuisance." - Harry
"Why the hell do you fun that alert scroll ont the screen all the time it is distracting i pay for this crap and i dont want that s***."- Anthony
"Your Amber Alert banner is as usual, 'OVER THE TOP'. Not that I'm pushing out the Amber Alert, of course not. But to constantly stream over top pf the MNF Scoring means somebody can't do a better job!" - Pete
With Amber Alerts and missing children alerts, talk to any investigator and they will tell you that every minute matters, especially in the first 24 hours of a search. Yet, we get emails from people upset that a crawl is a minor inconvenience on their screen.
Let me be clear, one of our most important tasks as a news station is to help keep the community safe. That community includes children, helpless children that have now been missing for more than 12 hours and are likely in danger.
We will always put safety above all else, it is the same reason we cut into programming during tornado warnings, it's information that is paramount to YOUR safety.
If you think a Sunday night football game is more important than the lives of two little children, you need to look at yourself in the mirror and reassess your values.
We will keep the crawl and picture running because that is the right thing to do and hopefully we will find Braxton and Bri'yah alive and healthy.