Media Fail
Remember Tiger Woods and his many sordid affairs? The media ate that up. It only took two weeks for our media sources to have “investigated,” found him guilty and hung him out to dry. Meanwhile, it has taken months for the media to “officially” report that former senator and presidential candidate John Edwards had a child out of wedlock, denied it…and did both while a major candidate in the 2008 race. Too, remember that it was the National Enquirer that broke the Edwards story wide open. The NATIONAL ENQUIRER. Not The New York Times, which had this profile about Cindy McCain in 2008, or the Washington Post, which had a front-page story about Governor McDonnell’s thesis from two decades or even Drudge, which only last week had a picture of Senate Majority Reid (D-NV) and a story about his alleged facelift as the leading story.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again- our professional media has failed us. However, in the age of the Internet, we have zero excuses. Let’s hold the professional media responsible by using the free market choices we have via the Internet, TV, newspapers, radio and magazines to show them Michael Jackson, facelifts, the Balloon Boy and other non-stories won’t cut it anymore.
Reality Comes A-Knocking
Every so often, people get what’s coming to them. The so-called “Ballon Boy” parents are two such people.
Both parents were sentenced to jail time, the father for 90 days and the mother for 20, respectively, in addition to four years of probation. They were “given strict probation conditions that forbid them from earning any money from the spectacle for four years…The Heenes’ probation will be revoked if they are found to be profiting from any book, TV, movie or other deals related to the stunt.” (I saw no reason for why the father was given 4.5 times as much jail time.)
This is very good news. America is a great country, but we are overrun by the people who a) want to become famous without trying hard and b) news media professionals who would rather pay attention to flashy and “soft” news as opposed to hard news. Perhaps a few more “failed and jailed” cases like the Balloon Boy parents’ and the Wendy’s finger case from a few years ago will encourage fewer frivolous lawsuits and attention-getting schemes that break the law, endanger people and put an unnecessary strain on public and private resources. (On that note, one of the few good ideas I thought former Senator John Edwards had was a three strikes law for lawyers who took frivolous lawsuits.)
