OK, so there has been a ton of shit in the news lately that has aggravated me and I need to just vent about it... hopefully I don't offend anyone here... some of it is trivial some of it is pretty serious... but it is all super annoying.
For the sake of the two loyal readers I have (and that may be over stating) I will break it down into categories for you all.
National News (and the sensationalism of it):
Oh no, "Shootings at school seemed unreal", "we live in such a nice small town, how could it happen here".... Sound familiar? Hey let's rewatch the videos for columbine hundreds of times until we can recount every step of Harris and Klebold, let's make them heroes for every malcontent youth who feels their lives suck so bad that the only way to have some lasting eternity in this anonymous world we live in is to do something that is sooo shocking, that they will be remembered for it after they off themselves. They have become cult heroes to a group of future Unabombers, extremists, which are at a point in their lives when stealing from the local convenient store isn't thrilling enough and doesn't have the right adult influence to move them to a more "proper path". Now I know it isn't that simple, and I know that I have no idea what the proper path is, but I am also not being paid to shape the minds of young children either, and I am pretty sure we can all be thankful for that.
So today we hear in the news that another school has had children come into class and shoot two teachers and two students in Cleveland. I must say it is very sad, the children truly are our future, but has anyone ever stopped to think that the media is a big part of this problem as well? How many times will they play the 911 calls from these kids while the shooting occurred, and why were they even linked... did we need to hear them? Does this change the actually story at all? No, but what it does do is sensationalize the story. It makes it into a train wreck, you are so horrified by the sounds that you need to come back for more... the networks might as well be injecting Heroin in your veins... because folks you're addicted. Now don't get me wrong, I am horrified by these events... Actually locally here in Fairfield County, two kids were charged with breach of peace at Wooster Middle School in Stratford after discharging caps in a stairwell and forcing the school to be locked down for roughly an hour. My friend Mindy told me about the experience, it is scary, and you don't know how to act. You think you do, but you don't. Now forgive me if you think I shouldn't be talking about this because I don't know what it is like to go through something like this... and you are right that would be extremely insensitive of me to be that guy telling to quit you're crying, but I have been there....
When I grew up I attended Dartmouth High School in Dartmouth Massachusetts, a decent size high school in a nice quiet town, Friday nights we went to the football games (but never did very well) and then would hang out at the landing afterwards or at a friends house... pretty standard for small town high school, that is until three days before my birthday, my senior year. April, 12, 1993, now I remembered the time frame, I had to look up the date, but that being said... I was sitting in Journalism class I believe having heard a story from one of my friends about how a few kids we new who were a bit younger had gotten into a fight before school and really beat up this kid. I grabbed a hall pass from my teacher and went to the bathroom and as I was heading back into class I heard a scream. A friend of the two kids involved in the fight earlier that morning had been stabbed in between two classrooms. Three kids came back to the school, the kid who had been beaten up, his cousin and a friend came back to look for the kid from the fight. He was down in the principals office along with another boy who had been there being punished. Apparently the two of them warned the principal there would be trouble when they saw them come in. The principal went out to look for them, but it was too late. Dartmouth High School had received the rudest of wake up calls... Life isn't so innocent, and while Jason Robinson and I were not friends, I was friends with his friends.
The long and the short of this is journalists need to take some responsibility in the way they report. I know when they do this, they get better ratings, but they are also encouraging the crimes at the same time. There are a number of reason why we are so hated around the world... but when these stories as horrible as they are take front stage, right next to the other biggest story of the day (usually something like Lindsay Lohan emerges from rehab, or Pop star bottoms out losing her baby to K-Fed). Let us talk about things that are important, let's find solutions to the things that are troubling us and others, let's not sensationalize these stories for the sake of selling a paper....
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