Turn off TV "news" until Christmas
Tell the broadcast media that you don't want to watch them exploit the suffering. "Murderer's cousin once watched him throw rock at squirrel." "Parents are devastated." "Interviewing" little kids. Just turn it off. If something happens that you really need to know, it will be on the internet.
| Posted at 11:04 PM | Permalink |
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Comments (15)
I started that policy about 20 years ago. I've not missed much.
Posted by John Rettig | December 14, 2012 11:15 PM
The second worst thing about the kid interviews is that these days they know the drill as well as the newspeople. They are almost all unreliable even when, as some of us were required to do, you get the parent's permission.
Posted by niceoldguy | December 15, 2012 2:15 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PezlFNTGWv4&feature=player_embedded#!
Posted by Aaron | December 15, 2012 3:58 AM
My guess is these violent episodes will lead to an even greater desensitizing of America. The taking of a single human life just won’t seem so terrible anymore. The unending efforts to clarify a killer’s intent by detailing his troubled past will have the unintended consequence of enticing others to do the same or worse (as suggested by the video Aaron posted). People will feed on every detail of a mass murderer’s life to try and make sense of something that makes no sense. To obtain the notoriety required for the attention being sought, each new killer will have to stage an even more shocking event. Let them live in anonymity, or stand by and witness the race for one-upmanship.
Posted by gibby | December 15, 2012 4:34 AM
Just turn it off....forever. We have! And we still have more than we need or want.
Posted by Portland Native | December 15, 2012 7:31 AM
That is exactly what the child psychologists have advised parents to do, for the health of their kids during this macabre orgy of media coverage. No reason the advice shouldn't apply to us adult children.
Posted by Drewbob | December 15, 2012 7:55 AM
TV? Gag- we use it for watching videos- the Discovery Channel and PBS...the news media exploitation is over the top and disgusting.
This kind of coverage will encourage other sickos to do the same thing.
Posted by K.W. | December 15, 2012 8:39 AM
I've not owned a TV since the 90's, yet I still more than my fill because of everyone else's obsession with it.
I have my flaws, tv watching is not one.
Posted by Jo | December 15, 2012 9:08 AM
It's makes me so angry when the show the killers photos and make him famous - if he's dead or caught don't show his face! Simply dialing down the celebrity they could save countless lives. Their sickening "coverage" runs like an infomercial for these wackjobs. The guns are not the issue at all - it's our culture.
Posted by 39er | December 15, 2012 9:13 AM
I haven't seen the face of the animal in Connecticut yet. I hope I never do.
Posted by Jack Bog | December 15, 2012 9:21 AM
They are filling the the demand by their customers -- voyeurs who must stop to watch, but not to stop and help.
Nothing to see here....
Posted by Old Zeb | December 15, 2012 10:14 AM
As long as we're reflecting about this, don't forget that the children who we've killed with our drones (in countries that we are not at war with), were just as precious to their parents.
The numbers vary but the latest study - "Living Under Drones" - done by Stanford Law School and New York University,has this:
The best currently available public aggregate data on drone strikes are provided by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), an independent journalist organization. TBIJ reports that from June 2004 through mid-September 2012, available data indicate that drone strikes killed 2,562-3,325 people in Pakistan, of whom 474-881 were civilians, including 176 children.
176 children.
It is significant to note on the same day this school tragedy happened, the US government was in court trying to get a lawsuit thrown out, a suit about drone attacks. To sum up the government position, if a drone had fired on the school yesterday, it would be legal providing the executive branch told the legislative branch after the fact, that in its opinion, the killings were justified collateral damage for a target the executive branch alone had determined was a terrorist threat.
Oh, and even if the dead were Americans - such as in this lawsuit - the government maintains that there would be no recourse that their families could take in an American court.
It's outrageous and it's legally indefensible.
Oh, and one other thing: It doesn't help in the fight against terrorism.
The parents of children over there care every bit as much as the ones here, and the drone program is just generating waves of additional hatred.
Maybe we should reflect a little more on that.
Posted by Bill McDonald | December 15, 2012 10:36 AM
"As long as we're reflecting ...."
Every day almost 16,000 children die of starvation.
Even more "outrageous" and "legal" but just as indefensible.
Posted by gibby | December 15, 2012 10:45 AM
I'm getting tired/repulsed by the reruns of the reporterrs sticking a camera in a kid's face and asking them to relive the horror of it all for his audience.
I'm better than that "audience". Why stop mwith Christmas?
Posted by Steve | December 15, 2012 10:54 AM
You can help by turning off the news
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=521103677908009&set=a.201235113228202.49929.100000251448867&type=1&theater
Posted by TheD Man | December 15, 2012 7:31 PM