Now thats a headline. As I'm sure a few of you have heard, Michael Vick (QB for the Atlanta Falcons, one of the few black 'faces' of the NFL) is currently on trial for allegations of dog fighting, killing dogs and generally being a douche bag. The douche bag part is probably not a federal charge like the others but its easier to prove - the Ron Mexico incident, the oh so dirty bird incident and even the water bottle incident (but I'm sure it was just for jewelry -- I hide all my bling in the false bottom of a Sobe bottle). But the big news has really been his affiliation with Bad Newz Kennelz. One of his alleged conspirators has already rolled on him and it seems as if person after person is ready to give him up to save their own asses. According to the Wikipedia page (if you haven't noticed already, I'm a responsible journalist and get all my information from the most objective source on the interweb, Wikipedia) over 50 dog bodies were found in addition to a whole assortment of dog fighting paraphernalia, the most terrible sounding one called a rape stand.
Which brings me to my real point: why does the media assume people care more about dogs than people? The first thought that comes to mind is that people really DO care more about dogs than people. My mom got a dog a couple years ago and I like her more than I like either my mom or my sister. Sure my family doesn't wake me up at 6 am and lick my face every time I go home but they also won't respond to my beck and call or fetch miniature footballs I throw out the back door. But if either one of them were killed at the same time as the dog, I'd like people to say how sorry they were that my family member died, not that they missed the dog.
On March 16th, 2006 a number of men raped a 14 year old girl and killed her entire family. Its not really clear how or how many were actually part of the rape and killing, but they have all been tried and most have either been found guilty or have pleaded guilty. It even seams as if the 'ringleader' was kicked out of the military so that they could try him as a civilian (so he could actually serve real time and possibly be sentenced to the death penalty).
Why is it that this story, about real people actually being murdered in cold blood, will be a 'big' news story for a day, maybe two, and the Vick story will go on and on for months if not years? I admit I rarely watch news on TV but I'm sure this story won't be leading very many programs but CNN and MSNBC all cut from Paris Hilton watch to the Vick story as soon as ESPN took its first breath.
Are we desensitized to stories of violence and death in the Middle East or is there something else at work? Is an Iraqi life worth less than an American? Is an Iraqi life worth less than a dog's life? If I asked 100 Americans on the street, I'm worried that 90 (in the spoke the truth) would say yes to the former and a good number would agree with the latter as well. A couple weeks ago I was listening to an NPR interview with a reporter from Al Jazeera English explaining their coverage of the Virgina Tech shootings. Obviously it was a HUGE story in America, and with good reason. He was explaining how TV news works, that each reporter is lined up a few feet from another reporter all shooting at the same general area, all basically giving the same speech about the same event at the same time. At the top of the hour everyone starting filming at the same time ... except him. The minutes just kept ticking and still he hadn't started reporting. After the 3rd story (and first break) they finally cut to him. The reason it took them so long to get to a school shooting that killed 32 people? Over a three hundred people in Iraq died on the same day. Imagine if three hundred people died in one day? And then imagine if three hundred white people in Virgina died in one day? (Yes, i know this is all shades of A Time to Kill but what am I supposed to do?)
In no way am I saying that Virginia Tech shouldn't have been the lede April 16th or April 17th or even April 18th, I'm just wondering who is choosing how we set our priorities? Do we really care about dead dogs more than dead Iraqi's or do dead Iraqi's just make for bad ratings?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment