Bad News: Oh, the horror...

Multiple kids get gunned down in DC and all the media can talk about is a poor 15 year old girl who hung herself after being "bullied" ... and we say that preferential treatment is non existent anymore. More lives lost - and more tragically in DC - but the young white girl from Ireland gets the big story. And the whole idea that we cannot blame this young girl AT ALL for killing herself is ridiculous. People want to wonder why teachers/administrators had no clue what was going on... it's in the article! Phoebe kept to herself. She didn't really tell people what was going on. Her friends probably knew better. Where were THEY? Her parents SHOULD have known better. Where were THEY? We all want to blame someone but the obvious people, but at the end of the day she tied the noose and stepped away from the ledge. She hung herself and she didn't have to. Yes kids are cruel. And they will never stop being cruel. To think we can police this in schools will just push it out of their jurisdiction back to the parents who don't even have a clue of what's going on in the children's lives. Ridiculous. Personally, if we get choice over who to blame, I blame the Pope.

Bad News #3: No Duh!

According to a recent CNN article, they claim that certain families of the victims of the September 11th attacks in 2001 do not want Obama to close Guantanamo Bay. Well, no shit! If you have ever heard anyone who lived in NYC at the time of the attacks recount their experience, it is clear that it was very traumatic, and rightfully so. I cannot even begin to imagine losing a loved one in the first tragic attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor. I would never try to take that away from them. Getting to the point of my article however, that is not what is wrong with this story.

Let's go over the two major blatantly flawed parts of this article:

1) 9/11 victims want us to continue to hold "Muslim terrorists" at the Guantanamo Bay facility. No duh! This is not news. Anyone who has suffered the amount of tragedy/loss that many of these victim families have is going to want revenge/vengeance. Of course they are going to want to hold these people indefinitely because, honestly, they are going to be selfish (again, rightfully so). They want the retribution for their families' losses; I would most likely be the same way. It does not take a stretch of the imagination to know that this is how they would respond, CNN.

2) The point of an article is to inform, but frequently it is also meant to adjust public opinion or political action. What bothers me is that these victims are not experts. They are simply people more closely connected to the situation than many of the rest of us. Their responses are purely emotional and should not be held with any gravitas above that. These family members are not experts in terrorism, the Middle East, Islamic jihad, so beyond the fact that they lost someone, what does their opinion matter? How about interviewing someone who can tell us, USING FACTS, what could happen if we close down the Guantanamo Bay facility? I am open to either side of the coin if someone can reasonably argue why or why-not.

On one side, we hold these people indefinitely, further losing standing with the Muslim world (you know, those of whom we are trying to win "hearts and minds"), but also most of the developed nations for potentially violating the Geneva Convention. On the other side, we "release" these detainees into supermax prisons across the US, holding them on our soil, and charging them with crimes. Justice will be served either way. From an visibility standpoint, it would seem to make sense to go with option #2. The detainees would be separated, and less visible to the international media. We get so scared by the words "on our soil" as if they are going to breed Islamic terrorism in the prisons with the hour or so of time they will have out of their cells.

CNN, you can/should do better. The opinions of these victims' families matter to me about as much as asking an Average Joe on the street how he feels about closing Guantanamo. Nothing is resolved in my mind over whether we should or should not close the detainee facility. Just another "feel-good" filler piece to load the 24-hour news cycle crap bucket. Let the Today Show cover that shit and give me FACTS.

Bad News #2: The Cat Killer is Caught

In a recent story on the cat serial killer that had been plaguing Miami, CNN just reported that he was caught. Oh joy! Who gives a shit. Let's move on to something important that affects, oh I don't know, the entire country?! This article should be left strictly to the local news in Miami. Yes, it's tragic, but why do I need to know about it?

Bad News #1: Another Rapper Shot

*Bad News is going to be an ongoing series exposing the idiotic and non-newsworthy stories that the cable news networks report on to keep their 24-hour news cycles going.*

You ever heard the colloquial phrase "No News is Good News"? Well, depending on your disposition, perhaps that phrase is true, but I would argue that not all news is created equal.

Now, I never got a degree in journalism nor have I ever worked at a newspaper or in the newsroom of a local or national news station, so I have never had to deal with the pressure to "make news." A recent CNN article (which, at the moment I am writing, is the #1 "Most Popular on CNN" news story), reporting on the shooting death of some no name rapper, Dolla, deserves to be singled out my first focus on Bad News.

So you may ask, what makes this Bad News?

1) Who the hell is this rapper Dolla and why is he making headlines? This is the first I have EVER heard of this guy. So he was garnering some interest from Akon, big whoop; a superstar that does not make him.

2) This article upholds commonly held stereotypes. Go into any largely white community and I'm sure you'll hear grumblings about another young black male being shot and the belief that it goes on ALL the time. Now, I am not trying to underscore the fact that it does unnecessarily happen frequently, but an article such as this only adds fuel to the fire that is being fed by TI going to jail and Mike Vick coming out. To top it all off, this is coming from the news network (CNN) that broadcasted "Black in America," exposing some of the perception problems black people often face in society, and then they go and join in the smearing. If this was a big name rapper, I think it would be another story, but this kid was barely on the scene. Do better work, CNN.

3) Amidst all that is going in the world, THIS is news?! C'mon CNN, just in America we are in economic dire straits, we have two wars still occuring, an upcoming healthcare announcement from the Obama administration, Pelosi saying that the CIA supposedly did not provide her with all the facts and a boatload of other stories that I would claim are GROSSLY more newsworthy this puff piece. That is just national news, let alone many goings-on internationally.

4) You are giving the public what they want and not dictating what the public should want. I think that I am going to find this to be a recurring theme in this series. Rather than elevate the public discourse and leave entertainment or unnecessary news to Entertainment Tonight and the tabloids, CNN and the other cable news networks puff in these pieces that pass for news and, in my honest opinion, help in the dumbing down of America. I do not care who Britney Spears or Lindsey Lohan is fucking and if I did, I do not expect to find it on a news network that appears to take itself seriously. This piece on Dolla belonged on MTV at best, if that network ever took time out from it's reality series to talk about, you know, music and music news.

There's a little bit of Bad News for you, enjoy!