Gotta Get This Off My Chest

I am very angry right now at what I consider another example of the exploitative television media who pounce on any tragedy.

I live in Massachusetts. Tonight the lead news story on the nightly news was about a school bus accident in Tennessee. A bus full of grade-school kids wrapped around a tree and six kids died. Now, obviously this is horrible, especially for the little kids who will have to deal with watching their friends die. But it's not national news. I fully expect it to be the lead story in Chattanooga. but why am I getting this in Boston?

Forgive me if it seems insensitive, but it's like the media just pounce on any story they can exploit. One anchor says, "we don't yet know the identitites of the dead." Well, why do we need to know the identities of the dead? We don't know these people. Isn't it bad enough this happened without parading their identities before the nation?

With a story like this, it's just tragic. But they use the same tactic when there is a shooting somehwere and immediately the whole nation has to broadcast, exploit, and politicize. It contributes to the copycat nature of horrible crimes bound to get exposure.

I cynically note that the students on the bus seem to be mostly minorities (at least what I saw in the footage). I wonder if the story would be broadcast were they white. At least, I wonder if that fact influenced the move to air it here or will color the coverage (no pun intended) as it goes on. The incident is already being politicized as at least one station immediately segued into states that have seat belt laws for school buses. So it's bad enough that kids are dead and it's being dragged out in front of us in another state, but that it's smugly being used to say "would this happen if school buses had seat belts?" is truly repugnant to me.

The actions of the mainstream media in situations like this reflect poorly on everyone. They are vultures and should be called out on it. I am disgusted.

The parents and children in Hamilton County, Tennessee have my prayers. The local new media however have only my contempt.

"I don't think it's right to put us on TV when we're feeling so bad." - Punky Brewster