While the tv was on a lot in my house growing up, the news was almost never on. We'd tune into a local morning show that was really more weather and variety tv, with a hint of local news thrown in for good measure. I started reading the new in high school, and watching the Daily Show in university (which, while amazing commentary is not a real news delivery system). Since Bunny's come along, though, watching the news has become a part of my everyday life. We put on the news while we bustle around in the morning. It's the background noise we put on after work, when I'm busy cooking and he's freelancing.
Lately it's been exhausting. It's been heartbreaking, really, some of what's going on in the world.
Stories of teenage girls commiting suicide, after being raped and sexually harassed and then bullied over it. Newscasters expressing sympathy to men who commit these type of crimes, rather than the women who are attacked. Seeing how clearly major news outlets are afraid of saying the word "rape" when that's what happened, how they sugar coat a situation as if it somehow softens the truth.
Then there are mass murders and terrorist attacks and too many innocent people, innocent children, dead because someone is angry at the world. There's shock and worlds imploding around people and it's just all too much until I want to tune it all out and pretend that this isn't the world I live in.
It makes me sad that we live in a world where people think it's ok to act like this. Where this is how people treat each other, and where it's gotten to just be so common. I'm tired of it.
I know exactly what you mean. I've stopped watching the news lately because it's just too much to handle. This world is headed down a very dark road. It is during moments like this that I like thinking about this quote,
ReplyDelete“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”
―Mr. Rogers
The Mr Rogers quote is actually perfect, right there.
DeleteWe don't own a TV, but I read the print media in this country voraciously (or used to). You're right, it's hard to stomach some days, and worse still when the source of your distaste is, as you say, the actual reporters themselves. I don't think the profession of journalism holds the same integrity it once did, and some days I consider swearing off it altogether.
ReplyDeleteIt's a hard balance because I want to be informed about the world. But the sources of information don't feel very trustworthy and more than a little insulting in how they portray things.
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