MY First Rant!!!! (totally non-fishing)

[Bernie]

I didnt insulate my kids from life but I tried to educate them about life at a pace. Its like me training an apprentice mechanic. You dont put him/her into a major overhaul the first year. You give them information at a pace so they understand the basics first. I agree 100% with you TJ. No wonder more people are going to Ipods, XM/Sirius. I get sick and tired of them beating the same story to death too.

Edited February 22, 2007 by Nipissing

[dustink]

I think you're right on with your issue....

 

Fine to broadcast that, just give fair warming, so the listener can decide if they (or who ever is riding with them) wants to hear what is about to shared. I think it may be harder to do during a normal type of news cast, but if it's a news program with different segments, then they should.

 

I listen to NPR here (National Public Radio), and if they do a segment on something that may not be suitable for younger listeners, they give a warning.

 

Protecting my childern from the world is doing them an injustice, but wherever possible, I'd like to have some say in the initial level and degree to which they are exposed to the things of this world. I appreciate when things like that come up, because as a parent it may open a door for a conversation I would have a hard time opening myself.

 

All that coming from a guy who has a 3 1/2 and 18 month old with another due in June. I haven't had to have a lot of those conversations, but enough (death of a family member, neighbor, pet, etc.), that I have an idea about how I'd like some other BIG conversations that are coming to go (dating, sex, drugs, freinds influence, etc.)

 

Some really good response here, too!

 

dk

[fishindevil]

well said TJ,we have a 5yr old little girl and she has already asked me questions about things that were on the 6 pm news and they were about things that she should not even know so i hear you and i am glad you did that.. ..thanks on our behalf as well......cheers

[mepps]

I led a very sheltered life in my younger years, and its pretty sad when kids are exposed to these days. People grow up a lot faster now then they did when i was a kid(and that wasnt very long ago!)

 

I feel for you TJ, cant be an easy task rasing kids in this day and age. I dont pay much attention to the new myself.

[douG]

12 year old items that have been resolved is not NEWS or commentary, it is exploitive.

 

I think that only Bookoobeast got the context of this story. The criminal in question was indeed the balcony rapist, and Folks in the neighbourhood were not warned of this guy and Jane Doe was raped.

 

He is being released from prison today.

[Roy]

Balconies eh? I'm a deckhand meself....

[~CK~]

I believe that parents are responsible for what their children watch on tv/listen to on the radio, but I also believe that the radio station should do the same as most TV stations do and give a warning to listeners that there are "Graphic details" about to be heard so take your children out of the room or switch the station.

 

I am also getting rather disgusted in the way these so called "news reporters" beat at aleady dead horses for days, neigh, weeks on end.. take, for instance, poor Anna Nicole Smith. JUST LEAVE HER IN PEACE! Jeeez!! When someone dies, it should be a private family affair, not splattered all over every source of media known to man until even the most braindead accident victim lying in a hospital bed somewhere with a tv can recite the gruesome details to you! I don't need to know what was in her fridge! The poor woman was obviously tormented and died a very tragic death. Now leave her family to sort out the details and get on with your own pathetic, miserable existences.

 

SOME reporters make me sick. November of 1996, there was a serial rapist terrorizing the North York/York Region area of Toronto. The man was described as black, early twenties, medium build. One of the victims was able to give a description that lead to a police composite sketch which was released to all the newspapers and tv stations.

One night, my best friend's boyfriend, walked her to the bus stop so she could go to work, and on his way back home he was arrested by York region police under suspicion of being the attacker. He was aggressively interrogated for more than 10 hours without food or water. At 5am, he was given a polygraph test, which he was told he failed. He asked for a lawyer repeatedly but was denied. He realized the only way they were going to stop was if he confessed. They were telling him point blank to his face that he did it, even though he knew he didn't. Finally, just to get some rest, he faked a confession. Of course, DNA evidence cleared him of all charges a week later. . and they did catch the real rapist eventually...

But in the meantime, his face, name, and any tiny detail about him, his life, and his girlfriend- MY best friend- , were PLASTERED everywhere that you turned. TV stations, radio, newspapers, all pointing the finger at him and saying that he was a rapist. My poor friend, she couldn't show her face anywhere for weeks, even months! People gave her dirty looks wherevere she went, someone even threw rocks at her one day! They were evicted from their apartment because the landlady believed what she saw on tv and in the papers rather than believe the truth.

This was a man who at the time, was a security guard waiting to get into the police academy. Because of the media, his name was tarnished and so was my friend's. It took years to come back from that. All because of a story, blown out of proportion, sensationalized if you will, with UN-TRUE "facts" that anyone with a tv, radio, or 0.50 cents to buy a paper were bombarded with.

 

When it comes to stories like these... sometimes the public really doesn't need to know... especially impressionable young minds...