I'm not sure when or how it happened but what passes for "news" is this country is getting rather disturbing. My husband and I are both news junkies, we read Internet news, watch all the news channels and even read old-fashioned news papers (gasp). I've thought many times about how real news is being replaced by "entertainment" news, but I didn't realize just how bad it was until this week. One night recently I finished watching the evening news and went into the kitchen to make dinner. My 8 year old daughter came in and asked if she could turn off the "news" and watch a cartoon. I said, "sure, the news is over". She said, "Oh, I couldn't tell the difference, it looked just like the news". It turned out to be "Entertainment Tonight". I realized how right she was, sadly, there isn't much difference! Take away the few seconds about the war, a couple of minutes about extreme weather conditions and you've basically got the same show. Why do we put up with being fed this gossipy, unimportant bullshit? Celebrity adoptions, rants or "feuds" (the real ones and those made up from sound bites taken out of context) get far more coverage than important things like healthcare, jobs or schools. How in the hell did this happen? And, am I the only one that cares? Isn't it sad that events like Anna Nicole Smith's "baby daddy", Don Imus and Sanjaya (or whatever his name is) get more coverage than anything that might actually have an affect on our lives?! I'm not sure if most people are even aware that the Supreme Court changed it's ruling on abortion this week. First time that's happened in over thirty years and it didn't even make front page news in many places. It's your prerogative to be for it or against it but I hope you at least know about it. There really should be more attention brought to ANY issue that actually changes our constitution!
Another thing that really bothers me is the 24/7 coverage of this Cho Seung-Hui guy at Virginia Tech. I mean absolutely no disrespect for anyone killed, injured or saddened by this awful tragedy. As a parent, I can't imagine ANYTHING worse than losing a child! What bothers me about the coverage, is being force-fed his photos, videos and rambling manuscript. Isn't that EXACTLY what he wanted?! That's why he did this! He referenced "Dylan and Eric" (the Columbine gunmen) as MARTYRS! He was proud to follow in their footsteps! I hope and pray that I'm wrong but I really believe his "fame" just perpetuates this cycle! Can't you see another twisted young kid thinking about trying to outdo him and be even more "famous"?! Surely someone in the media has given this some thought. Apparently, trying to up the ratings outweighs trying to prevent this from happening again.
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