Bless Us Every One

Now, I'm not the only one who has noticed the utter break down of society. We have had two major news "events this last week or so that point out the utter failure of the media to mediate our experience of events that take place daily in our world. Initially, I had hoped that it was just an isolated incident, but it has proven to be systemic. First, we heard of the "Tucson Tragedy", the senseless shooting of innocent people in a parking lot in Arizona. One frustrating thing about the coverage was that the rarity of the event was ignored completely. Over three hundred million of us were not threatened in any way that day. Our chance of getting shot was less than one in fifty million. The salient point was not that hundreds of newscasters/cameramen/producers and their equipment were employed to bring us photos of blood stained concrete, but that half a dozen people died that day. We barely remembered to mention that one of the dead was a vibrant nine year old. In the coverage since, we have focused on the "target" of the attack, the woman who still doesn't know what went on that day. This is not like the "Four dead in Ohio" that reflected the government's war on it's own people, but a fluke caused by an insane person having access to a gun with a clip that allowed him to keep firing without reloading. My heart goes out to those whose lives have been changed forever. I'm glad that Gabby will recover, but I'm sick at the ignorance that is reflected in the coverage of her plight at the expense of the families of the dead.

Similarly, the raid at the Philly clinic that was the site of so many tragic incidents, and apparently many more deaths, ignored the real story in favor of what they wanted us to hear. Instead of telling us that this type of facility can only exist when there are so many without access to health care, says to me that the people covering the news don't have a clue. Worse, they have an agenda that they want to push down our throats. The a-word (abortion) was in the headline and once people had been stirred into vehement hatred, the facts mattered little. There were hundreds, if not thousands of people who obviously needed care enough to seek out this clinic that was dangerous because it was poorly staffed and un-funded. There was an opportunity to tell the story from a different perspective, but the powers that be dictated the rhetoric. I agree that vile and reprehensible things take place every day in our country, but the coverage of events that we see every day rank up there with the events themselves.

Like a magician producing a rabbit from his hat, the news producers tell us where to look, when and for how long. Too often, it is away from what really matters in our lives. The "Tragedy in Tucson", boiled down to three words cannot possibly convey the dramatic outcome of failed gun laws, nor can the "Clinic of Death" story explain the tragic state of health care in our nation. I am one of the millions of Americans who has to choose between being homeless and having health care. Having been homeless in the past, I don't want to devolve into that state again. Having seen insane people wielding guns as well, I recognize the threat that they pose to the rest of us. Neither of these stories had much bearing on reality. Instead, they have soft pedaled fiction over substance, presented us the happy face while finger pointing at paper tigers rather than the real challenges that we are facing in these troubled times. Millions of us face challenges daily that are never mentioned by the media. When they are covered, the distorting light of the media comes and goes so quickly that nothing substantial can be seen.

In my work as a spotlight operator, my living is made by showing people what to look at. The myopic lens of the news camera is thousands of times more effective than my light. God help us if we cannot learn how to use it's awesome power for good. now, more than ever, we need to look critically at our world and figure out how to improve the lives of us all. Our humanity depends on recognizing that old maxim, a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic. Each of us is a reflection of God/ess, perhaps it is expecting too much to want our media to reflect reality. Is it too much to expect these "entertainment" sources to at least try to reflect reality?