I'm torn between deleting my previous post, and the alternatives of saying exactly what I think about the woman involved, or just letting it go. Three options, all of them aggravating me because the whole thing makes me want to bang my head against a wall.
There is, however, a fourth option, and that is to say "I should know better."
Nearly four years ago a good friend of mine was involved in a "mess" that made MANY local headlines. I learned a few things, many of which I briefly forgot today.
1) The rush to get the story "on the air" first is more important to many news providers than getting the full / real story.
2) The media will use your emotions to suck you in to a story. As a parent I was brought to tears by the initial story. I was outraged. Furious! That's exactly how I was meant to feel, by the reporters. Now, I'm not saying they were lying. But as it turned out, the story is very different (apparently) from what was originally told. I allowed my feelings about the subject in general (and my friend, in particular) to compromise my objectivity.
3) Everyone has an opinion about stuff they hear on the news, and those opinions can be very hurtful to the people who actually KNOW the people that the news is about. In many cases the person is portrayed as someone completely different than who they truly are. The whole "media" thing makes the nightmare that much worse for the family. They are hurt by whatever happened, and they are also hurt by the vicious media coverage. They want to say "this isn't who he/she is" and no one really listens. You find out who your REAL friends are.
4) The shit will fly for a while, then the media will go on to the next "if it bleeds, it leads" tale. But they will come back to haunt you at EVERY friggin' court appearance you make. If you comment, they will edit your comments before airing them. Your lawyer will tell you not to comment. When you have no comment, the media will use that to portray you as callous/ indifferent, etc
5) People with no real connection to you at all will comment on you. They will write letters to the editor. They will post on the internet (ugh...) But they don't fucking know what they're talking about.
6) Never slug a news photographer because it's just a whole 'nother bag o' crap to deal with.
If I can leave y'all with one point, it's "Don't blindly believe everything you see on the news. Think. "
4 comments:
Not to sound like some militant anarchist hippie, but I never believe anything I see or hear in the mainstream media. The "news" is being fed to you to promote an agenda. It's really depressing. I have some newspapers from 1945. The first thing I noticed when I read them was that it was just news. What happened. When. To who. There was no political expert circle jerk, there was no editorializing, there was no slant for or against. It was just hard news. I may actually post about it, because it fascinated me.
im totally agree with johnny.. its incredible how media can control everything, u should read the story of my country just to get a huge example (evita crap and stuff)
kiss from argentina
ian (i´ll talk to my doctor - ref. your comment at tisha´s post)
Johnny- I'd love to see a post about your old papers, being the retro junkie that I am.
"The dumming down of society" has been in the works for some time. The only thing worse than the print news are the local radio guys. They rant about topics with only a fraction of the details, and most of those are wrong. That gets passed on as fact ("I heard it on the radio...") and the damage is irreversable.
I have no idea what the solution to this is except what Johnny said.
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