Pick Me!

A weblog by Laura Moncur

6/19/2005

Skewed News

Filed under: General — Laura Moncur @ 5:00 am

Since I don’t watch the news on television and I rarely even bring CNN.com up, I have a very strange and skewed view of the news. It actually started to make me angry the other day until I realized how limited my exposure to the outside world is.

I don’t like to let anything negative into my life. That’s why I cut the news out of my life. It’s not apathy; it’s self-preservation. I steer clear of anything that affects me negatively. So, I read blogs that are supposed to be fun, like the Disney Blog.

I don’t know if you heard, but a four year old child died on a ride at WDW in Florida. Because of this, the Disney blog talked about ita lot. It’s big news when someone dies at Disney World and even bigger news when it’s a seemingly healthy four year old child. After reading all the entries about what Disney should do about their Mission Space ride, I started to get angry.

There are hundreds of kids dying in Iraq. They are a little older than four, but they are still kids in my book. I don’t see warning signs about that anywhere. I felt like the whole world was ignoring the war in Iraq just because one child died in Florida.

Of course, that’s because I don’t read the news. I have tried to shield myself from all the horror that our boys are experiencing overseas. In effect, I have ended up thinking that the world is ignoring the shameful and deadly events that happen every day and are focusing on a single, tragic, unexplained death.

I suspect that the news stations are filled with depictions of the war that we have wrongly been involved with. I bet that the American public is bombarded every day with images of our boys dealing with terrorists attacks. The regular news stations aren’t obsessed with this event at WDW or the Michael Jackson verdict, right? They are covering the war, right? Anybody…

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1 Comment »

  1. I’m happy you’re able to find plenty of non-negative stories on The Disney Blog for those moments when you want to escape. I realize you weren’t directing your criticism at me or the blog. I wanted you to know that I understand where you’re coming from. It also strikes me as odd that our invasion and occupation of Iraq gets such little play while Runaway brides and Celebrity Trials get headlines in the major media outlets.

    That’s precisely because they are all entertainment media selling a product to earn advertising dollars (just like The Disney Blog when it comes down to it). You have to get your ‘news’ from other sources and be critical of the source even then. Most of America has been bitten by the PT Barnum bug. They just want to be entertained and allowed to lead their lives as best they can. I think the people who have run this country for the last 30 years (and that includes both parties) have figured that out. Things won’t change until a cure is found for apathy and complacency.

    Comment by John Frost — 6/20/2005 @ 9:50 am

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