It's to the point now where I can't even stand to watch the news. I'm not fooling myself into believing there was a time when things were "better" I guess, but it does seem with the marginalizing and polarizing of opinions being presented and the obsession with ratings on the newscasts, we've lost focus of what once was really important there.
So... yeah.. sorry about that, I guess I got off on a rant.
A rant I do thoroughly condone. I'm pretty anti-'the news' now, and that's the fuck*ng BBC. I get angered by the bad reporting, the bad grammar (they're fuck*ng trained, they should know better) and the 'human interest' shite. But worse than that is the sensationalism and fear-mongering that crops up in our Americanised news coverage. Admittedly, the majority of that on the normal British news only crops up when children are killed, but that's some of the most annoying, as it melds with the human interest story style of reporting on it.
I don't need the families of murdered, raped children appealing for help with tearful eyes and broken sentences. I don't need the 'this is what we wanted' statements the minute someone is actually jailed. It doesn't get us anywhere. It's not news. I know people consider having someone locked up as revenge, that doesn't mean I need to know more than that this person was caught and is doing time, if that. As far as the children issue goes, I certainly don't expect it to become such pervasive news that it takes up all the coverage, with reporters living in the village 24/7 to corner the police on scene, and to do interviews with concerned neighbours. Again, someone's opinion of the 12 year old's life being so precious, so innocent, so torn away, is not fuck*ng news! But it's all we get the minute something like the Soham murders happen. It's not like they didn't have their suspects from the start with that case. Yes, two girls are tragically killed... Shit happens, I'm sorry to say.
All this kind of news does is keep people from letting their children go outside alone. I love the, I think it's Norwegian way of dealing with childhood deaths, which is to admit that yes, they happen, and to get over it. I don't know whether we have the news media to thank for it, but people seem to think they can control every aspect of their own, and their families lives, and it's clearly never going to be the case.
Even with things like the July subway bombings in London... Coverage for the anniversary featured tearful interviews with survivors as they remembered the horror they lived through. It struck me that the media was instilling a level of post traumatic stress is survivors of disasters. Where the majority of people might learn to live with what happened, even considering themselves maybe... lucky say, for living through it, now they are sobbing uncontrollably as they recount the events. I've almost died a couple of times, and both I considered myself incredibly lucky and decided to do more with my life. I felt like an asshole for thinking that about these survivors, but fortunately a day later someone was on the radio commenting on exactly the same phenomenon. As for, like you say Mel, the favouritism when it comes to choosing stories that will sell both papers or airtime... It's deeply sickening. I'd love to see the chart they have telling us why and how and who will make the biggest splash. I'm sure it's more complicated than you might think, with different categories and venn diagram style crossovers stating that say, the handicapped may be in this section, children in this, but add the two and lo...
I find the news incredibly depressing now, and mostly because of the way it is presented, the attitudes and opinions of the presenters and producers, and the hateful, fear-mongering presence with which they pervade society.
OK, now I'll shut up.
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