I just made the tragic mistake of spending almost a full hour reading, watching, and listening to the news. My complaint isn't the traditional, "It's too depressing! Why can't we have a good news channel?" because really, if someone donates money to the Salvation Army in your town, and someone kills someone else in your town, which do you want to hear about first? I do, however, have a complaint. You see, news is now relayed through websites, and most of those websites allow readers to leave a comment to weigh in on the news story. WHY? I can think (and I can prove, since, as I just explained, I've spent the last hour on these sites) of dozens of reasons why these comment sections shouldn't exist, and how they actually degrade the sites and news stories, but I can't think of any one reason why they should exist, or any iota of positivity they possible contribute to the newsreading experience.
I've kept my news story searching to the local level - never venturing beyond my state's borders for fear of the horror lurking just beyond my purview. I looked through Atlanta news, while watching the 10 o'clock Atlanta news on television. I read through the Columbus, Georgia news, and also the newspapers of a few small podunk towns in my immediate area. Wow, news is horrible. I can't believe that I at one point wanted to write for a newspaper. Stories are boring, and stolid, and rarely get more information across through their labored sentences than were originally communicated via the headline. Not only that, comparing a small town newspaper to the Atlanta evening news is hilarious. Let's just say that the standard for what makes news isn't always the same. However, our local small towns have had a few adventures lately.
- A couple has been arrested for killing a co-manager of Family Dollar while robbing the store.
- Three dumbass teenagers, while on a recruiting trip to UGA, stole iPods, phones, and other things out of the football players lockers. WHAT. THE. HELL. I would argue that was a bit short sighted, as far as value goes.
- Some girl who grew up around here, married a Marine, and was working as a stripper in California was killed by her Marine husband.
- In my favorite story, some Muslim family has dominated the news every day in Atlanta for a week. While the husband was gone, the wife (and mother of five, let's be sure to add, every single time we reference her) went to the Redbox to rent a movie and was never seen nor heard from again. The husband has been on the news every day, people have been looking for her and putting up fliers, etc. Then today his wife reappeared - she'd been staying in a women's shelter down the street under a false name and had left the house because she was afraid of her husband. "I had sent her a text saying, 'I'm going to kill you' which wasn't the best choice of words." he explained today. She ran away because she was feeling afraid, and then really got herself in over her head when he went to the Police and it became news, because now her family would know that she had spent the night ON HER OWN out of her house and she would be shamed and disowned if she came back. Sometimes, kids, religion ain't too healthy. For my own sanity's sake, I skipped the comments on this particular article.
The story that first got me started on all of this news crap was Mag reading to me, from someone's Facebook status: "Praying for the families of the four women who were shot today in Columbus as part of a gang initiation. One of them was pregnant but they saved the baby." (this may not be word perfect, as it's just something she read to me earlier, but the details are all there). Now, I have quite the famous BS detector (the secret - nearly everything on Earth is an exaggeration) and so I immediately knew there was no way this was true, and got online to disprove the statement. As I told Margaret, "Killing four women, one pregnant, as initiation? This is the most hardcore gang in the world!" Of course, the real story is that two women were shot - one pregnant, who was killed, and another in the leg. The women were carrying a gun in a crappy part of Phenix City when the incident happened but there are currently no suspects. The baby was saved, which is the only true part of the Facebook status. I'm sure more details will come out in the next few days, but what really amazes me is how quickly the story has metastasized from the basic facts into doubling the number of women, saying all were dead, and giving the killing a motive.
If I had a super lame super power I would want it to be the ability to trace a rumor. It's humanly impossible, of course, but I would start with whoever posted that status, follow them backwards in time to whenever he/she heard the story, follow that person back, etc. etc. Does someone here something wrong? Does someone make some conjecture about motive which then gets repeated as possible, then probable, then fact? Does someone somewhere along the way deliberately add facts that they know to be untrue in order to make the story juicier? I find that endlessly fascinating
You know what else I would find fascinating? A news story that ever was completed! Now I already gave an example of one that has been completed - the Suleiman tragedy was brought to its predictable anti-climax, but that story was only followed up on because the news was following the, "Pretty Muslim Woman Disappears!" storyline all week. However, when researching all of this news I was reminded of a municipality-shattering event that happened not three miles from where I now sit, back in February. A body was found in an abandoned lot and four arrests were made - three for murder, and one for making false statements to Police. The murderers were caught because one of them was stabbed during the murder (presumably) and had to be life-flighted to Atlanta. The other two murderers were little redneck wiggers, aged 17 and 18. Now, through my Internet detective skills, I quickly found out a few facts that the papers never divulged (everyone has a Facebook page these days, and even when they take them down, they often forget they have Myspace pages still open, since no one uses Myspace anymore). I found some arrest reports on the guy that had been killed, his age, his town of residence, and a few facts on the teenagers charged with murder. I constructed an elaborate story in my head that fit the little bit of evidence that I had (it revolved around drugs, let's face it) and waited for the follow up stories that explained a bit more about the facts. It never came. I just spent a bit searching for any follow up story whatsoever since the arrests were made over two months ago, and I couldn't find a thing.
Instead I got to read a comment section on whether or not a teenager should have made a comment about an umpire at a local ball game, and an in depth argument in the comment section about whether or not the paper should have stated that the murdered 19-year-old worked as a stripper, and whether stripping was moral and, "Christian." Thank you Internet. Once again, you've taken a bad thing and made it worse. Not every mouth needs a microphone.
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