Let's Hope A Majority of the Victims Were Adult Males
I am becoming a tad annoyed at the politically correct media by rtbohan
(libertarian)
Thursday, March 6, 2008
I first began to be annoyed about this while watching Fox News reporting on the bridge collapse in Minnesota. It was when the reporter said, "There may be dozens of women and children still trapped beneath the bridge." If there are people trapped beneath the bridge, does their sex, age, race or religion matter? This is a tragedy, so let's get busy and save as many as possible. But apparently if the only people trapped are adult males, there is no need for either regret or action.
The vague annoyance I felt at the time returned in even stronger form today when I read a story by Ryan Flynn on Bloomburg.com. The story was about a double bombing in Bagdad which killed fifteen people and injured 35. The story goes on with this vital information: "At least four women were among the victims and many others were teenagers of young adults." Well, golly, that's all we need to know. Why did you bother giving the total number?
Mark Twain has been criticized for including in Hucklberry Finn the statement by Tom Sawyer talking about a steamboat explosion, "No one was injured. One N- - - - -r was killed."Twain, of course, was satirizing the attitude of nineteenth century southerners. But I get the feeling that the news media feel they are doing a public service by spouting this kind of nonsense.
And so I am a little ticked off. I only hope that I am gone before the media adopts a policy against rumming obituaries of males over thirty.
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I have noticed that reporters seem to focus more on wheather or not any pregnant women or children were killed or injured in any given tragedy. Like anyone who isn't a pregnant woman or a minor doesn't matter. So if you aren't with child or (heaven forfend) you're a man, hey, it's not as sad if you die or are badly injured. I am very annoyed at this obvious bias. I am irritated that others don't seem to be as fed up with this manipulative type of reporting as I am. It isn't a greater tragedy just because kids or pregnant women die, and the men in these same tragedies also have people that love and value them. So enough with the overemphasis on the young and the pregnant.
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