# The hypocrisy of media priorities



## idolomantis (Jul 24, 2011)

Hello all

I don't post here much at the moment because I'm not keeping anything but I figured I could post something like this anyway.

I am actually surprised nobody else did.

Looking at the news and seeing people I hear a lot of people grief about something. This Time it's the death of a celebrity called Amy Winehouse, Who had apperantly Over dosed on drugs.

So many people Appear to be upset by this. However later in the same news There is this short 2 minute coverage About Terrorist attacks in Oslo, Norway. But I noticed a few people give any recognition on this.

Now I wonder Why would it upset people more to hear about a Drug and alcohol addict celebrity ODing(which anyone could see coming since the moment she refused rehab), Yet it leaves people unnoticed or stone cold to hear about an Intelligent psychopath Mowing down 85 Young people on an island they could not escape from and bombing the centre of a capital, leaving thousands affected. Is it because The celebrity had A lot of money and fame? Or is because people are indifferent about people in a far away country dying en masse. Do they consider the life of a famous drug addict to me more important and valuable than other lives? Aren't all human lives the same? What are your thoughts on this, as most of you are from the United states, Another prominent victim of terrorism.

And I do not intend to bash Amy Winehouse or her fans, I'm just pointing out that while she has so much media coverage mass murder happened and got barely any in some countries.

My deepest condolences to anyone affected in Norway.

Thank you for reading.


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## sporeworld (Jul 24, 2011)

Yeah, I saw the news story on the rampage very early yesterday (before, I think news of Amy's death), and it was all over CNN and the other news stations. Very sensationalized, but still, well covered.

When I drove to work last night, the radio was somberly reporting the news of Ms. Winehouse's "untimely" demise.

I'm positive, when my employees come in this morning, and talk about the senseless loss of life, it will have NOTHING to do with Norway.

Sigh.


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## Malti (Jul 24, 2011)

who sold most - Amy or Norway?

who will sell more - Amy or Norway?

answer those and you have your answer.

personally I was more shocked on the Norway tragedy than OD...


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## Malti (Jul 24, 2011)

and unfortunately the death toll is at 92


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## angelofdeathzz (Jul 24, 2011)

I think there's a fear factor in people that someone at anytime could end your life and all your friends/family for the most simple and/or selfish reason, and that is a scary almost unreal reality that makes people think wow I'm glad it wasn't me and my family, which doesn't mean they don't care but it strikes a deep horror in you so much so you may not want to think about it 24/7, plus if you give the wacko to much press and attention maybe more like them might come out of the woodwork for fame or a sick thrill.

Amy may have been a crack head and she really wasn't my kind of music but i for one thought she had a stunning remarkable voice when she wasn't to messed up, some people love to watch a train wreck like her all the way to the bitter end, and then they jibber jab about the whole thing for a while.

So keep in mind she had many fans and was loved and the killer was not so much. My heart goes out to the victims families...


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## patrickfraser (Jul 24, 2011)

RIP Amy Winehouse. Sometimes the world is too much for some people, or some people are too much for the world. This Girl was both. News is just like your refrigerator. First in, first out.


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## hibiscusmile (Jul 24, 2011)

Yea, made me upset when nothing was going on but the Japan title waves and the nuclear plants and as soon as something else poped up, no one heard about it again, blows my mind.


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## PhilinYuma (Jul 24, 2011)

Good to hear from you again, Idolo. The news sources that I usually read, NY Times, Chicago Tribune, BBC, etc, all gave heavy coverage to the killings in Norway. My question is why do we only take an interest in folks, popular figures excepted, when they die? If these kids had had their political meeting unmolested, they would have never made more than local news..As it is, we still know nothing about them except for the nature of their death and the fact, reported by a medical examiner, that "the bullets exploded inside them." We seem, as a species, to be in love with the violent death of others.

Phil Ochs put it most pungently in Crucifixion:

How did it happen? I hope his suffering was small.

Tell me every detail; I've got to hear it all,

And do you have a picture of the pain?


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## kamakiri (Jul 24, 2011)

I think there has been a fair amount of coverage and concern over the massacre in Norway across the US and here in Cali. Terribly upsetting and I'm sure will be discussed more than Amy Winehouse at work tomorrow. I like her music, but I've long thought she was a train wreck waiting to happen. And speaking of, no pun intended, but you didn't mention the high speed train derailment in China...does that mean you don't care about the Chinese?


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## Colorcham427 (Jul 24, 2011)

In my opinion this is typical, sadly. I am feeling horrible for the people who are obviously effected by the tragedy in Norway. The ripple effect that a death has on loved ones, especially murder, cannot be imagined unless it happens to oneself to a loved one.


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## sporeworld (Jul 24, 2011)

kamakiri said:


> ... And speaking of, no pun intended, but you didn't mention the high speed train derailment in China...does that mean you don't care about the Chinese?


Yeah - for what it's worth, the Train Wreck was the lead in story last night, followed by Amy Winehouse.


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## idolomantis (Jul 24, 2011)

kamakiri said:


> I think there has been a fair amount of coverage and concern over the massacre in Norway across the US and here in Cali. Terribly upsetting and I'm sure will be discussed more than Amy Winehouse at work tomorrow. I like her music, but I've long thought she was a train wreck waiting to happen. And speaking of, no pun intended, but you didn't mention the high speed train derailment in China...does that mean you don't care about the Chinese?


I didn't hear about the derail incident until you pointed it out, really. But the problem I pointed out earlier it did not get any coverage.

Now I went on a top dutch news site to look how much coverage each subject has:

I see still a lot on Norway.

I see also a lot on Amy

I see nothing on any Derail..

And I heard from contacts in certain parts of north america that they only heard news on Amy, and nothing on Norway or China.


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## crucis (Jul 25, 2011)

I read somewhere that most humans have difficulties relating to more than a handful of deaths. After a certain point, individual tragedies are reduced to mere statistical figures - especially if they happen in a land far away, to people you know nothing about, and for reasons you cannot begin to understand (unless you devote yourself to some hours of research, that is...)

Regarding celebrities, these are people whom the public is intimately familiar with; personalities that audiences can relate to. Their faces, exploits, and personal issues have been pervading the media for years...

I guess this could be one reason why?


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## kamakiri (Jul 25, 2011)

idolomantis said:


> I didn't hear about the derail incident until you pointed it out, really. But the problem I pointed out earlier it did not get any coverage.
> 
> Now I went on a top dutch news site to look how much coverage each subject has:
> 
> ...


Maybe they're just glued to facebook or their smart phones. All three are in the newspaper, TV news and on the radio. If your contacts are in their 20s or under, I think they might not find out until there's coverage on YouTube...


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## PhilinYuma (Jul 25, 2011)

kamakiri said:


> *Maybe they're just glued to facebook or their smart phones*. All three are in the newspaper, TV news and on the radio. If your contacts are in their 20s or under, I think they might not find out until there's coverage on YouTube...


Either of these activities seems much healthier than the necrophiliac attention of many to people whose only interest lies in the fact that they died violently. The same morbid interest is also manifested by expressway drivers who cause bottlenecks by slowing down as they pass a crash in the hope of seeing a bloody corpse. In_ Brave New World_, the students got a good closeup of the dying, and if I remember, the dead. Perhaps if HS freshmen were shown through a morgue, they would get over this morbid curiosity But then again, perhaps not.


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## MantidLord (Jul 25, 2011)

Typical and expected from the media. But what really gets me is that when news of the shooting first came out, everyone was quick to blame a "certain group of people". It's ridiculous how society is. And the death of one person (though I admit talented) due to over dose can't be compared to the massacre of nearly a hundred innocents. Madness...


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## MantidLord (Jul 25, 2011)

Double post. Sorry.


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## idolomantis (Jul 25, 2011)

kamakiri said:


> Maybe they're just glued to facebook or their smart phones. All three are in the newspaper, TV news and on the radio. If your contacts are in their 20s or under, I think they might not find out until there's coverage on YouTube...


No, they are indeed of that age category but they are not like that. We young people are not that oblivious and self centered, really. They found out being going to the cnn website. Nothing on the news, radio or newspapers.

And I agree with mantidlord, the media was very quick to blame the attacks on islam, while its actually a peaceful religion it's the jihad beliefs that are only covered on the news and are the ones doing suicide bombings.


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## kamakiri (Jul 26, 2011)

idolomantis said:


> No, they are indeed of that age category but they are not like that. We young people are not that oblivious and self centered, really. They found out being going to the cnn website. Nothing on the news, radio or newspapers.
> 
> And I agree with mantidlord, the media was very quick to blame the attacks on islam, while its actually a peaceful religion it's the jihad beliefs that are only covered on the news and are the ones doing suicide bombings.


Well, young people ARE self centered. I was that way too. And I have trouble believing that anyone in their 20s or under in the US is actually reading the paper. Now I'm doubting that they watch the news...

The massacre has been on the local news every morning and night here locally through this evening. I've read about it in the local paper (OC Register) the LA times, and on WSJ which I get at work. I also heard it twice on NPR, but not on KROQ. Your friends aren't much proof of lack of coverage in the states. Just saying...


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## Peter Clausen (Jul 26, 2011)

Interesting stuff.

Worse things than Norway occur every day, but they are not novel. They've lost their shock value. I know a family that has two adopted African children. These girls are the few--the very lucky. That bad day in Norway is an impossibly good day in the place and time they come from.

The news catches my eye like the Golden Arches on a drive down mainstreet--the masses getting in line for mass-produced nourishment. Industry gives free people exactly what they ask for. They buy sugar and fat from sellers of sugar and fat, and they wait in line for it.

We'll close our eyes and when we open them we'll see one mantis eating a hundred flies. The mantis doesn't decide and the flies don't decide. We do. Most mantises and flies live in nature. Most people die in cages.

Henry David Thoreau says (copied from http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau ):

_When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. We rarely meet a man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper, or been told by his neighbor; and, for the most part, the only difference between us and our fellow is, that he has seen the newspaper, or been out to tea, and we have not. In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post-office._

_I do not know but it is too much to read one newspaper a week. I have tried it recently, and for so long it seems to me that I have not dwelt in my native region. The sun, the clouds, the snow, the trees say not so much to me. You cannot serve two masters. It requires more than a day's devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day._

_We may well be ashamed to tell what things we have read or heard in our day. I do not know why my news should be so trivial, — considering what one's dreams and expectations are, why the developments should be so paltry. The news we hear, for the most part, is not news to our genius. It is the stalest repetition._


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## Rick (Jul 26, 2011)

The MSM is a big part of the problem. Many people fail to use their own brain and think about the issues themselves. THey take everything they see on the MSM at face value. I do find it truly pathetic. I couldn't care less about this one or any other person like her. We have soldiers dying in combat and yet that is rarely on the MSM. Most people are more worried about when the mighty corn muffins are playing next.


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## idolomantis (Jul 26, 2011)

kamakiri said:


> Well, young people ARE self centered. I was that way too. And I have trouble believing that anyone in their 20s or under in the US is actually reading the paper. Now I'm doubting that they watch the news...


All I can say here isThat The stereotype of youth the media creates is very wrong, just like all other stereotyping.

And yeah, Today There was a plane crash in Morroco And The Drought of africa is still claiming thousands of lives. BUt All I see everywhere is still Amy Winehouse. ThankfullyAlso still coverage on Norway.

Speaking of which I have heard from news sites that the psychopath can serve A maximum of 21 years in prison... I don't know how reliable this is though and I hope it's false.

Also the Killer stated That he did To make impact on the goverment because they let the country(but also much other parts of europe) get "run over by muslims".

I don't have a problem with any religion but I do have a problem with any extreme Ideology.


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## PhilinYuma (Jul 26, 2011)

Very interesting, as Peter says. I do not share Grant's and Rick's pessimism about "youth" and thought I would consult an American teen on the subject. Sunny is in LA with her BF and has lost her droid (is there life after droid? Yes, if you have insurance!) so i I called Amanda, the GD whom I coached in some 9th grade subjects last year.

Alas! She had not heard of the Norwegian massacre, and only a mention of Amy's death on YouTube. As Grant mentioned, most kids, and probably most adults don't bother with newspapers any more. Even The New York Times tell us more about Albany and less about Phoenix or Sacramento than we may want to hear. Instead they read online news feeds, and she had been following the budget talks as the deadline approaches.

She has a good grasp of the issues and is delighted at the impossible position that Boehner finds himself in. We are both leftist pinko comsymps, so there was little argument there. I bet her ten bucks that the issue wouldn't be solved by the deadline. I think that it will, but this will give her $10 to get a kindle book from Amazon. Yes, thirtyish guys, she reads fiction, too!

When Amanda read _Kite Runner_, I gave her a background on the major Muslim sects, so she is familiar with the Salafi. I pointed out that the American "anti jihad" (read anti muslim) bloggers in the US appeared to hae been a profound influence on the murderer, and that if we believe their tenet that Salafi theology has provided the infrastructure for Al Qaeda (nonsense, anyway, since it is only the minority Salafi jihadi that advocate war against the gaiurs), then we must believe that their writings are the infrastructure on which the murderer's actions were based [an argument based in part on a leader in The Times]. She cut that interesting discussion short by denying the premise!  

Sunny on her return home will blame the whole thing on the English Defense League, not because she believes it but to preempt any attack i may make on the US. Like Amanda, she is fairly well versed in Islam. Remember the anthrax scare? At that time she took control of all the Yuma Muslim terrorists as El Yumi and we carefully planned an operation that involved sending anthrax infected blankets to Africa, so that when the deaths started occuring, Russia and the US would attack each other. Alas, our plan was foiled by the news of global warming (climate change!) which ended the distribution of blankets.

So there you go. The brightest kids out their have better things to do than worry about Amy Winehouse, unless of course, they were fans, and the massacres of unnamed youngsters in a foreign field. Learn from them.


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## kamakiri (Jul 27, 2011)

idolomantis said:


> All I can say here isThat The stereotype of youth the media creates is very wrong, just like all other stereotyping.


Well the sad part is that the generational stereotypes here in the US often fit...

I can add more to the list...like arrogance, wanting reward for mediocrity, interest in social approval over individual achievement, avoidance of challenging tasks or anything with the chance of failure. Now that doesn't apply to ALL people that I know in the subject age range...but the characteristics really are the norm.


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## PhilinYuma (Jul 27, 2011)

Anyone who has not looked at your profile, Grant may not be aware that you will be 101 this November, and it is likely that your mood begins to darken with the growing proximity of death. We used to call it the "ubi sunt" syndrome, "where are the snows of yesteryear, and why aren't the kids of this generation as strong and brave and true as they were in my day?" If it is true, then it must be that your generation and the one following it failed to do as good a job of child raising as your parents did, but when I see youngsters of Rick's and Peter's age, or my own grown kids, they don't seem to have done too badly. My generation said the same things about them when they were teens as you are saying about the current younger generation. I didn't believe them either!


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## kamakiri (Jul 27, 2011)

You mean you didn't wish me a happy hundredth last year?   

I agree...this next generation will not have done badly if I make it to 120...And I didn't believe *my* parents about *my* misbehaving, etc. :lol: 

It is Idolo's JOB to deny the truth...as I think we all did, to some extent.


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## patrickfraser (Jul 27, 2011)

Leave the youth alone! They are only doing what they've been taught. This is what I grew up with and I'm ok.






Just "lick a lolly" and "fah-get" about it.


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## Peter Clausen (Jul 27, 2011)

That was awesome (and embarrassing)!

I remember my sister liked the Electric Company and I didn't, though I really liked Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street. Watching that video makes me feel better than watching the news any ol' day.


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## patrickfraser (Jul 27, 2011)

I wonder what those people are doing today. I'd love to see a reunion show.


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## PhilinYuma (Jul 27, 2011)

patrickfraser said:


> I wonder what those people are doing today. I'd love to see a reunion show.


Among the choices of clips from the YouTube collection was the first episode of Electric Company. The woman who yelled :"Hey You Guys" was Rita Moreno, still alive, I think , at about 81, Bill Cosby, who looked old even then, and the young dude with the Afro and the brightly colored pants was Morgan Freeman, looking a lot younger and happier than he did in Se7en, the recent movie. It always interests me to see that movie stars who were my age decades ago are now old, while I remain the same age. Anti oxidants, I guess.


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## kamakiri (Jul 27, 2011)

Wow, Phil, Se7en wasn't 'recent'... :lol: 1995...even for me at 101.


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## PhilinYuma (Jul 27, 2011)

kamakiri said:


> Wow, Phil, Se7en wasn't 'recent'... :lol: 1995...even for me at 101.


Well, it takes a while for them big city movies to reach Yuma, Grant, especially the ones that quote Hemingway. We expect The Social Network to arrive early in 2018!


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## idolomantis (Jul 28, 2011)

kamakiri said:


> It is Idolo's JOB to deny the truth...as I think we all did, to some extent.


Ok well. It is very unwise to keep insulting youth like that. Eventually the youth that you keep calling arrogant Will be taking care of you in an elder home. This youth that you keep insulting is the future of our planet and just as many adults as youth are evenly ignorant. 90% of humanity is. I can tell you this much And I clearly spend more time under "my kind" than you do and few of us have A smartphone, most of us know what;s going on the world and few of us waste time on failbook every moment of awakening. I know I was sort of dumb when I got on here and If I look back on myself I want to shoot my younger self really but I was never ignorant to the world around me. I check for news multiple times a day And I appreciate everything nature has given us. You can keep insulting anyone younger than you all you want but do know that instead of offending younger people you could also motivate them. I've really had more than enough with older people thinking "HURR HE"S A KID HE DOESN'T KNOW WHAT HE'S TALKING ABOUT".Even If you only had yourself and couple of other around you as example of youth doesn't mean that ALL are like that. most are, Still thousands of them aren't. I know a 14 and a 15 year old Who know and realise more than almost every adult. But it's up to you if You choose to keep ignoring everything or open your eyes.

My job to deny the truth? Look who is the ignorant one.

I hope this doesn't get deleted, for once.


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## patrickfraser (Jul 28, 2011)

LOL


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## kamakiri (Jul 28, 2011)

idolomantis said:


> Ok well. It is very unwise to keep insulting youth like that. Eventually the youth that you keep calling arrogant Will be taking care of you in an elder home. This youth that you keep insulting is the future of our planet and just as many adults as youth are evenly ignorant. 90% of humanity is. I can tell you this much And I clearly spend more time under "my kind" than you do and few of us have A smartphone, most of us know what;s going on the world and few of us waste time on failbook every moment of awakening. I know I was sort of dumb when I got on here and If I look back on myself I want to shoot my younger self really but I was never ignorant to the world around me. I check for news multiple times a day And I appreciate everything nature has given us. You can keep insulting anyone younger than you all you want but do know that instead of offending younger people you could also motivate them. I've really had more than enough with older people thinking "HURR HE"S A KID HE DOESN'T KNOW WHAT HE'S TALKING ABOUT".Even If you only had yourself and couple of other around you as example of youth doesn't mean that ALL are like that. most are, Still thousands of them aren't. I know a 14 and a 15 year old Who know and realise more than almost every adult. But it's up to you if You choose to keep ignoring everything or open your eyes.
> 
> My job to deny the truth? Look who is the ignorant one.
> 
> I hope this doesn't get deleted, for once.


Idolo,

You're making 2 mistakes...I'm talking about kids in the US...and that aside, your last post is reeeally proving my point, in general.

You're a good guy...I'm not doubting that. I could tell you about *my* youthful arrogance...but that would not prove anything. Only after you can look back on what you have done, will you understand what I am saying.

Locally, coverage on the massacre continues morning and evening...


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