Human trafficking and Plainfield redux

1212 West Front Street, from which girls were rescued.
Photo by DD, taken day of NYT story, Jan. 25, 2004.

The Washington Post has a major Page One story on human trafficking today. Plainfielders have bitter memories of the city's brush with infamy over this issue.

After the hatchet job by writer Peter Landesman in the January 25, 2004, NY Times Magazine article about the Plainfield Police Division's bust-up of a human trafficking ring that had lured young Mexican girls into forced prostitution, Plainfield faced a battle against hyperventilating national media over how widespread the phenomenon was and how important the Plainfield story was in the picture as a whole.

I was never satisfied that our concerns the story was being hyped on a basis of very scanty facts were ever dealt with seriously by the NY Times -- with whose public editor I was engaged in an email back-and-forth -- and I went over this ground again in Plainfield Today when Attorney General Milgram was nominated (she had been the federal prosecutor overseeing human trafficking cases).

Now, finally, a mainstream media story that throws a properly skeptical eye on this matter.

Don't get me wrong: One person trafficked is too many. But shouldn't there be some regard for facts?

Thank you WashPost, for advancing the discussion!

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More information --

• WashPost: "Human Trafficking Evokes Outrage, Little Evidence"
• NY Times Mag: "The Girls Next Door"
• Plainfield Today: "Plainfield and AG nominee Milgram"
  

-- Dan Damon

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ARCHIVED POSTS OF PLAINFIELD TODAY FROM 11/03/2005 THROUGH 12/31/2006 ARE AT
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