"The mainstream media has utterly failed to provide perspective or balance in coverage of the adoption of the 3-year-old Cherokee child, now known as "Baby Veronica."

The case of a 3-year-old Cherokee child, now known as "Baby Veronica," who was ordered by a South Carolina court to be given to her birth father almost two years after she had been in the custody of a South Carolina couple, is a complicated one, which the US Supreme Court has decided to hear.

Late last year, a family court judge ruled that the child's birth father, Dusten Brown, a member of the Cherokee tribe, was entitled to custody of the child due to the language in the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). Brown received custody of the child on Dec 31, 2011, and in July, 2012, the South Carolina Supreme Court affirmed the original ruling. When Veronica, was taken from her adoptive parents, Melanie and Matt Capobianco, a flood of media coverage from local, regional and national media outlets - almost all of it expressing outrage over the case - soon followed."

Get the Story:
Michael Corcoran: Media Failures Lead to Flawed Understandings in Cherokee Adoption Case (Truthout 1/13)

South Carolina Supreme Court Decision:
Adoptive Couple v. Cherokee Nation (July 26, 2012)

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