Media rant

It happens all the time.  They want to get you to watch and once you see the story, they want you to remember it in the grisly details they portray it with.

A news story accompanied with video spoke of this man whose boat (row boat) had overturned and he had to hang on until help arrived.  The text of the report was that he was desperately hanging on in the rough water.  Well, in the video, the man was sitting on top of his overturned boat gently rising and dropping a couple of inches at a time.  The situation didn't seem desperate, the man didn't seem to be having difficulty keeping his seat.  But to hear the report, you'd think it was very traumatic and touch-and-go for the man.

There was an opening on a news report for an upcoming story. It spoke of the horribly unsafe conditions of our nation's bridges and the huge cost of fixing them.  I was sure they were pointing fingers at all the bureaucrat's who have neglected their civic duties at the possible cost of human life as well as the need for more federal dollars to be collected for repairs. The article stated the example of two particular crumbling bridges.  I-35 which collapsed in Minneapolis in 2007 and the Famed Tappan Zee bridge which spans the Hudson river at it's widest point.  Here's the thing.  As horrible as the I-35 collapse was, it did so not because of neglect, but an inherent design flaw.  The second issue was the Tappan Zee which has not collapsed, is still in use, and -wait for it- is currently being replaced by a completely new bridge being built right alongside of it.  So, for all the chest beating and hysteria, The two biggest example of this "problem" either don't fit, or contradict the premise that no one is fixing them.  Dumb.

Finally, what got me riled up today.  A news story about a man who was trying to rob a bank today. Throughout the article, the TV showed a frame from the surveillance cameras of the man. It was a pretty clear picture.  The announcer said his apparent age, height, weight and the clothes he was wearing, which was clear in the photo, and that was it.  But wait, in the photo, it was clear he was an African-American.  I'm sure, they didn't want to stigmatize anybody by stating his race, but skin color is a physical characteristic that separates one person visually from another.  It was an important fact, and wouldn't have been slanderous in any way to mention it.  I wonder if they would have mentioned it if he had been white.

It's bad that we as citizens have to really watch what we see and think so deeply about such things, but it's part of the responsibility of being an aware citizen.  Do you not think,though, that the press has some responsibility here as well?