Argh!!!!
Okay, I have had it with the local news. Sure, there’s lots of crap about the local news that’s worth a bitch here and there. It comes with the territory. Bias. And, um, bias. Let’s see, there’s also… bias. Oh, don’t forget bias. Bias, too! Last but not least…. bias!
Perhaps I should be more specific. As many of my complaints tend to involve, this is about youth. The local news is just yet another public outlet that shits all over youth without a care. And the worst part about it is that in doing so, they’re inviting every one of their brainless viewers to carelessly shit all over youth as well. It’s on the news! It must be true. But let’s continue.
What set me off today was when I spent just a few minutes downstairs in the kitchen getting a snack, where my grandmother had the TV on the local ABC news. They were running some story about these two 17-year-old guys who attacked a man with a taser and robbed him. Okay. Run of the mill robbery. I feel sorry for the victim. I hope the robbers get punished. Plain and simple.
But, oh no! You see, because the assailants are under that magical age of 18 (although, given the way the media look these days, I’m starting to think that magical age may be 25), ABC (and perhaps NBC, FOX, and CBS as well, no doubt) decided to make it look like a youth crime wave. Teenagers are all horrible people who do nothing but disobey and attack adults! Let’s lock them all away!
The news reporters didn’t say that themselves, but the constant use of “the teens attacked the man” over and over implied it, as did the random people on the street they were interviewing. Some bitch was saying “what are these kids doing out so late?”
Is THAT the thing you’re focusing on? Two guys attacked someone, and you’re fucking worried about that they were out past their bedtime? Right. In fact, I’m certain that, even though these guys were bent on harming another human being despite any legal or moral rules on that, they would of course obey a random curfew set by either their parents or the town. Suuuure.Even if there were a curfew, would the cops have seen them before they attacked the man? No, because they’d be too busy hassling an innocent 16-year-old who wanted to take a short walk around the block to relax for a bit.
And that’s another thing! If these guys had been 30 rather than 17, there would be no talk whatsoever about their age. In fact, the news reporters would probably have given it no more than a five second mention. There would be no one trying to say they shouldn’t have been out so late. Reporters wouldn’t be trying to give all their viewers this inherent fear that any random 30-year-old would jump them and steal their wallet. No. Those 30-year-olds would be treated as they should. Just criminals. The 17-year-olds are just criminals as well. Why add the fear of teenagers or the rallying cry to lock them all in their homes? That’s just ridiculous and has nothing whatsoever to do with the situation.
Shit, what’s next? Use this as an excuse to make a rule that no minor may be out in public without an accompanying adult? That any unescorted minor would be automatically penalized for being a vandal or thief or whatever? Heh. Sounds an awful lot like a society our military is overseas trying to liberate right now.
*sighs* Media ageism is bullshit. It drives me mad. *growls*
Yep. The only thing I dread more than these ageist news stories are hearing my grandmother’s agreeing comments about them. Sigh. Quite scary to think she’s just one among millions and millions who are like that. :pissed:
You think that’s bad’ get this, my brother-in-law was at his home when a neibor kid comes over and asks where his sisters cats were, his sister lived in the appartment next to his, which he rented to her and her boy friend until they stopped paying rent 3 months before, I guess their drugs and booze took too much of their state check, anyway he tells the kid that he gave the cats away because they had been abandoned in the apartment with out food or water and were pissing all over the place, the kid goes outside and my brother ib law follows him, and what do you guess happened, the kid attacks him, so my brother in-law pushes the kid off him and sits him down, the kid goes home and crys to his mommy and she calls the cops, this cop comes and tells him he was goig to be arrested for child endangerment, because the 17 year old thug got some scratches on his neck, so they haul my brother-in-law off to the cop shop and hold him until the hearing, two days, one day in solitary confinement to protect him agaist him killing himself. The kid goes free, and my brother in law faces charges, he will probebly lose his job if he is convicted because he works in a nursing home with the elderly.
Aint Justice Grand.
Wow, that sucks.