No doubt by now you’ve heard the name John Mark Carr. The news media has been in a frenzy state since August 16th when he proclaimed that he had something to do with killing a little girl 10 years ago.
Hardly an hour went by on cable news without some sort of “Breaking News” in the case, usually a report that he’d climbed aboard an airplane or had cake for dessert on the flight.
The whole episode was seriously ridiculous stuff and tells you pretty much everything you need to know about today’s sad state of ‘journalism’ in America.
The national news media spent the better part of two weeks focused on an event that had no impact on the lives of everyday Americans. In fact, they were so focused on hyping every little detail about the story that a lot of ‘real’ news – things that you and I care about – didn’t get the kind of attention they deserve, or were just plain ignored by the national news media.
One of those stories is Iraq. You hardly hear anything about what’s going on in Iraq anymore from the media. Who knows, maybe they just don’t care anymore. Or maybe they think that Americans are tired of all the “bad news”. Either way, frivolous stories like the Carr one pushed Iraq, which was getting precious little coverage to begin with, out of the news cycle completely.
Since we all heard the name John Mark Carr for the first time, at least 35 U.S soldiers have been killed in Iraq. At least two of them from here in Wisconsin. Over one hundred more have been wounded, many seriously.
Anyone else remember after 9/11 when all the media outlets swore off “tabloid TV news” and recommitted themselves to providing coverage about the events that really mattered?
What happened to that?
I live in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Milwaukee, WI with my wife Jen, our daughter Emerson, and sons Carter and Colton.
Is this the least bit surprising? Mass for-profit news will always reflect the interests of the average news consumer – and those interests tend toward the vulgar and prurient. It seems like you might be giving people too much credit where civic-mindedness is concerned. Anybody who cares about important events can easily find what they’re looking for. The rest of the people will simply believe whatever we tell them and go about their happy lives swilling the latest gossip on Hollywood celebrities. And all this is just a part of the strong argument against true (direct) democracy. Thank god we’ve never ventured down that road.
Even with just a Republic, it still hurts when most voting citizens don’t get good information about what is happening.
One of the biggest problems with U.S. elections is that many people decide how to vote based on 30 second commercials which are very misleading. These commercials are expensive and require politicians to take bribes in order to get elected.
If our population was better educated these commercials would have less impact on elections and perhaps would no longer be worth the cost.
More can be done to educate the people, true. Civics classes in high schools do a poor job of actually giving the students a clue as to how the government works, and more importantly what is wrong with it. Additionally, all colleges ought to require a class on government. Not that this will convince even half of them to care; but it will at least enlighten those who are civic minded.
Beyond that, though, what more can be done? Information on candidates is available to anybody with 50 cents for a newspaper. It’s all over the internet if you take ten seconds to look for it. But the problem is that most people don’t care enough to find it. As a result they’re picking candidates based almost entirely on name recognition and party identification.
The question shouldn’t be, “How can we better educate the voters?” The question should be, “Should we allow people to vote in the first place, without some indication that they’ve taken even a minute to prepare to do so?”
My money was on him being not guilty, anyway. I’m astonished no one else noticed it. The man was up on serious kiddie porn charges in Thailand, and to escape a Thai prison, he dropped the Jon Benet bomb. Then, after extradition, a friend suddenly surfaces with proof he couldn’t have done it. So he walks away from a Thai prison sentence, and won’t be prosecuted here. Everyone here was too gullible to see what he was doing.
We should send him back to Thailand.
No offense, Arlen, but your post exemplifies just what’s wrong. I’ve looked quickly at your website, and it seems you care about what’s going on in the real news, but most people following this story don’t.
Everyone I talk to has theories on this guy who claims he killed a girl a decade ago, but didn’t do it, but maybe he did, or maybe he knows who really did it, etc. But very few of these same people can tell you how many representatives come from their state, who their representatives are, what those officials vote on, etc.
They’d much rather discuss the latest “news” concerning Paris Hilton or Tom Cruise. Hell, they’d rather discuss Rob Schneider’s latest flick than anything that actually affects their lives.
Tom Cruise could actually be useful. More negative press for the Scientology crooks would be a benefit to society. Having someone challange Tom on camera about how they scam normal people out of their money might make a very interesting feature.
“But very few of these same people can tell you how many representatives come from their state, who their representatives are, what those officials vote on, etc.”
You act as if this is a recent phenomena. I doubt if any time in the last century there were a substantial amount of people that could tell you how their representative voted, probably more who could answer the other questions, but not a majority. Those things haven’t changed much since the 70′s, that I know for sure.
Know-nothing voters and corrupt politicians are as old as the republic. Yes, I have a passing interest in the news of the day, though I’m not as partisan as our host. Having seen up close the operation of the Democratic party, I harbor no illusions of either party being worth my time. It’s like the difference between Chevrolet and Pontiac. Oh, occasionally the handlers get careless and let a real candidate slip out, but they’re getting better and those mistakes are happening with declining frequency.
I turn on my TV and see Green attacking Doyle, and Doyle attacking Green, and I know that whoever wins, I’m getting screwed. It’s hard for me to convince anyone the difference between the red politician and the blue politician is worth noting. Every now and again a good one comes along, for which I’m grateful, but for the most part the polling booth is an exercise in LOP (Least Objectionable Politician).
And because of that, I’m hard pressed to find a reason to condemn those who have tired of being talked at by the artificially created people from the Donkeys and Elephants and who choose instead to tune in to the other world of plastic people, the show business crowd.
Arlen – thank goodness you post on here … I was feeling so lonely! ;)
I harbor no illusions of either party being worth my time
Amen.