What the fuck happened to journalism?
Last summer, we were saturated with headlines of gruesome shark attacks. Consequently, idiots avoided beaches in record numbers. Once in a while, you’d see a small article or op-ed piece rationally stating that the number of attacks was actually a bit lower than in previous years. Those sensible articles didn’t sell papers, though, so they were usually relegated to small spaces near the back of the paper, cluttered among advertisements.
Now, of course, it’s the Summer of the Children Abducted by Strangers. Never mind that that this highly-unlikely scenario has been on the decline for four straight years and is on par for a fifth. That’s irrelevant. Little Janie that would have been a pictureless blurb on page A-16 last year is now the subject of a haunting, full-color picture on the front page and banner headlines.
The sharks are surely attacking people again this year, but they’re forgotton, tucked away in the same corner of the paper that last year featured a tersely-worded AP bulletin about another poor little Janie. The sharks are boring now. Next year, Janie, too, will probably be relegated back to her old place beside the Lasik Eye Surgery ad.
The sad fact of the matter is that a child is abducted by a stranger roughly once every three days in this country. It’s not a phenomenon that’s on the rise and it’s not big news because it happens all the time and doesn’t directly affect a large number of people outside the community in which the crime was committed. Sure, a kidnapped girl should generate big headlines in the Paducah Post if she was kidnapped from Paducah, but she shouldn’t be smiling at us from the front page of USA Today.
This post is in no way meant to insult or poke fun at those affected by child abduction. I don’t have a kid myself and can’t even begin to imagine how awful it would feel to have a child taken away from me, but it’s just not national news.
There are a lot of terrible, painful things that happen in this country (and around the world) every day that aren’t news. The statistic was reported about a month ago that over 40,000 Americans died in automobile crashes last year, but that quickly slipped right off the page at all the major news web sites, and, of course, failed to spawn wave after wave of articles on safe driving techniques and procedures like the ones we’re seeing now on how to protect our children from becoming one of the hundred-or-so abductees.
All I really want to know is why the fuck do we need news “fads?” Apparently the technique must be selling papers, but it’s emotional manipulation, not real news. Newspapers should be sold with the intent of educating readers on worldy affairs and local events that affect them, not pulling on their heartstrings or frightening them with unlikely scenarios. We already have a forum for that. It’s called Reader’s Digest.