Post by Paragon on Apr 17, 2007 12:07:34 GMT -5
...especially the News media in Television.
Understand, I don't want to take that right away, and am certainly not suggesting or advocating it, but sometimes the media really pisses me off, and I wish I could just shut them up. Not to mention, they help perpetuate problems, vanity, and stupidity.
What brings this up? How about recent events? Yes, the shooting at whatever university it was (Tenessee?).
Turn on the TV right now, or anytime within the next week or two, and chances are good that you will see something about the shooting immediately. Turn to any news channel and the chances are about 98% (2% for commercials). Just a litte review; some guy, apparently Asian (which is really damn weird), shot up at least 31 people on a campus, and then blew his own face off.
That is some bad shit right there. That definitely qualifies as a tragedy in my book, and I'll admit that I'm curious to hear more as details are released.
But thats it. Thats all. One article per day in the newspaper, or one segment per day on a news station, detailing any new developments in the situation; like a positive identification, or finding out more about the two people shot before hand, whether that was related, and if it was against protocol to not inform the students earlier.
I do NOT want to hear some kid from Columbine talk about what the families are probably going through. I do not want the reporters to spend the entire day reporting about this. I do not want sensationalized reports, with boo-hoo witness testimony, and people trying to point blame somewhere.
It makes me sick to see all of the reports about this. And its not just this either, its any big tragedy. 9/11 still pisses me off. The coverage as the buildings fell was fine, but all of these special reports, television specials and movies really turn me off. You know why? Because they don't give a shit. News is a business, and businesses are out to make money. Sure, the reporters probably feel just as shocked about it as I do, but after a point, they're acting, they're making a mountain out of...well, a large ant hill. They feign compassion with dollar signs in their eyes.
Beyond that, it sends a message to everyone. Right now, the message being sent by the reports about the shooting is, "Do something fucked up, and you'll get assloads of coverage, and become infamous". Wonderful.
I'm no advocate of the bullshit theory that violence in the media makes people violent. TV, video games, movies, they don't have that kind of influence, people learn those things from other people they know, and by not having good parental role-models, not from shooting up a shopping mall in GTA. The reason there's a correlation between violent behavior and violent media, is because the people who like to do violent things like to watch violent media too.
But media can influence the way those people do things. And right now, every violent, attention-deprived person out there is wondering if they should shoot up a school too. Why? Because after they do, they'll be famous!
Its the same with celebrities and their retarded antics. They do it because it gets them attention.
Because I'm sick of hearing about Anna Nicole Smith, and because I don't want to encourage people to shoot up more schools, I'm going to boycott any reports that go beyond simply delivering mostly objective facts about important things. This won't be hard, I've been doing it for years already, but I encourage you to do so as well. Stop giving the media reason to do this stuff.
Understand, I don't want to take that right away, and am certainly not suggesting or advocating it, but sometimes the media really pisses me off, and I wish I could just shut them up. Not to mention, they help perpetuate problems, vanity, and stupidity.
What brings this up? How about recent events? Yes, the shooting at whatever university it was (Tenessee?).
Turn on the TV right now, or anytime within the next week or two, and chances are good that you will see something about the shooting immediately. Turn to any news channel and the chances are about 98% (2% for commercials). Just a litte review; some guy, apparently Asian (which is really damn weird), shot up at least 31 people on a campus, and then blew his own face off.
That is some bad shit right there. That definitely qualifies as a tragedy in my book, and I'll admit that I'm curious to hear more as details are released.
But thats it. Thats all. One article per day in the newspaper, or one segment per day on a news station, detailing any new developments in the situation; like a positive identification, or finding out more about the two people shot before hand, whether that was related, and if it was against protocol to not inform the students earlier.
I do NOT want to hear some kid from Columbine talk about what the families are probably going through. I do not want the reporters to spend the entire day reporting about this. I do not want sensationalized reports, with boo-hoo witness testimony, and people trying to point blame somewhere.
It makes me sick to see all of the reports about this. And its not just this either, its any big tragedy. 9/11 still pisses me off. The coverage as the buildings fell was fine, but all of these special reports, television specials and movies really turn me off. You know why? Because they don't give a shit. News is a business, and businesses are out to make money. Sure, the reporters probably feel just as shocked about it as I do, but after a point, they're acting, they're making a mountain out of...well, a large ant hill. They feign compassion with dollar signs in their eyes.
Beyond that, it sends a message to everyone. Right now, the message being sent by the reports about the shooting is, "Do something fucked up, and you'll get assloads of coverage, and become infamous". Wonderful.
I'm no advocate of the bullshit theory that violence in the media makes people violent. TV, video games, movies, they don't have that kind of influence, people learn those things from other people they know, and by not having good parental role-models, not from shooting up a shopping mall in GTA. The reason there's a correlation between violent behavior and violent media, is because the people who like to do violent things like to watch violent media too.
But media can influence the way those people do things. And right now, every violent, attention-deprived person out there is wondering if they should shoot up a school too. Why? Because after they do, they'll be famous!
Its the same with celebrities and their retarded antics. They do it because it gets them attention.
Because I'm sick of hearing about Anna Nicole Smith, and because I don't want to encourage people to shoot up more schools, I'm going to boycott any reports that go beyond simply delivering mostly objective facts about important things. This won't be hard, I've been doing it for years already, but I encourage you to do so as well. Stop giving the media reason to do this stuff.
