Perhaps I did not make my point clear. The media produces little of substance. The following, in my opinion, is not news: murder, abuse, or celebrities. These topics, however, seem to be what most highly distributed "news" consist of.
If there is a shooter in my area, yes. I do not care about a woman in Florida who killed her daughter six months ago. I do not care about a child gone missing in California or any other state. These events are tragic, but not important to me.
EDIT: For clarification, if there is something I could do, then I would care. Since I live in NW Ohio, crime that happens anyplace other than NW Ohio is not important to me. There is nothing I can do about a crime that occurred outside of my locality. When the national media reports on such topics, they are simply sensationalizing a tragic event for their own self-interests. It disgusts me. They view death and tragedy as a commodity to expend for the sake of profits.
Take for instance this headline currently on CNN: A helicopter has crashed on the campus of Texas A&M University, authorities say.
Is this tragic? Yes. Is this truly noteworthy as a national topic? No. Why does this receive attention? Do you think that this was the only accident today? This is a prime example of the sensationalization I mention. If you run a search with Google News on "plane crash" several other crashes come up. They are covered by the local stations. Why does an arbitrary helicopter crash in Texas make the national news? Pure sensationalism.
Sorry I have edited so much, but this is a topic that infuriates me.
What do you mean by this (child gone missing)? You don't care about child kidnappers even though you could potentially see the child and alert someone?
I can be pretty cold myself from time to time, but if that's what you mean that's pretty heartless.
I'm sorry, I'm in Canada and I have to suffer the crap that is American news, it even gets on the god damn news here. I even got news of several of the numerous school shootings on public news back in the UK. I'm sorry, but American kids shooting up American schools, isn't the concern of either a British or Canadian.
Okay, 90% of child kidnapping directly involves someone in the family - first thing the police should do, hunt down everyone in the family haul them in and tell them it's a crime to leave the state without court permission. Then you've only got 1 out of 10 cases where the suspect isn't already in your custody! Those cases, I'll watch on the news; I don't care when some hillbilly family starts kidnapping each others kids.
Thank you for your POV. Even though you are not in the US, it's nice to read the thoughts of someone else who shares this opinion. Perhaps if enough people shared this view and let it be known, the national news might report on something of substance.
Agreed, look at the New York Times. It's currently on the verge of collapse and it's finally starting to realize this isn't the 1930's anymore and the web isn't just another place for people to read your newspaper. It appears they're beginning to get the point that it's the 21st century and you can do pretty much anything online.
It's a shame it's taken the New York Times to get to the brink of destruction, but I believe almost every newspaper company is going to get to that point before they realize they need to change... just I think most won't adapt fast enough.
What I am trying to say is that these things are within the domain of local news. I have no problem with these things appearing within the local news. My problem is with the national news choosing one arbitrary murder to broadcast nationwide when these things are happening in communities all across the country everyday. It's sensationalism, nothing more.
