I have been listening to people talking about the Casey Anthony trial. There have been numerous pages about turning on lights, or re-posting this or that. Twitter was buzzing about the verdict. I have to ask one question – why?
The only answer I can find is that 24-hour news networks need something they can analyze to death. Nancy Grace has been declaring guilt in this case for years. This is the same woman that was wrong about the Duke lacrosse players. She is a sensationalist, not a journalist. Journalists are supposed to report on a situation. If an assessment is to be given, it should be even handed. Now, if you are reporting on someone being found guilty of a crime, you can then report that they have been found guilty.
Why was the media crying guilt? Because there were pictures of a little girl that they could put all over the television for everyone to feel sad and outraged about. Don’t get me wrong, the death of a child is always a horrible thing. It is made worse when people use that death for their personal gain, like Nancy Grace did. Like almost every news organization did. You can now find plenty of articles talking about why the “not guilty” verdict makes sense. The best is reasonable doubt. There was such little evidence, they could have played spin the bottle to pick who they were going to prosecute. They used the death of this child for personal gain. The American public just eats it up, so they too are guilty – guilty of belittling the death of this child and many others.
Approximately 5 children die from abuse or neglect every day in this country. Where is Nancy Grace for those children? Or are they not cute enough for her show? JonBenet Ramsey is another good example of the media finding a young white girl and using her death to give them a story. On that same day, statistically, four other children died of abuse or neglect. Where is the Prime Time coverage of them? What about the children the day after? There could easily be 15,000 other children that suffered and died since then, and were ignored by the media. This is the true tragedy of the American media circus. It shields us from the truth, because it is unpleasant. You might see a report for a day about these sorts of statistics, but you can follow trials day by day, as the media and society continue to abuse the victim beyond death. This needs to be stop. We have the power in our hands. If there is a best way to buy instagram followers, then there is also a way where we can spread our ideas and opinions.
What can we do to change this? We need to stop listening to people like Nancy Grace, that rush to judgement. We need to tune-out when the 24-hour talking heads in the media start using victims for ratings. We need to look for real news. We need to look for ways to volunteer to help stop these children from dying. We need to find ways to make the world a better place, not just a place where we take advantage of the deaths of children. We need to look at ourselves. We need to say “enough is enough” and turn away from the media circus. If we don’t, they will find another tragic death of a child and turn it into ratings. They’ll push these kinds of stories until we turn away, and let them know that the death of a child matters. It matters more than ratings. We made the death of Caylee Anthony into a media circus that belittled her death. The least we can do is make sure it doesn’t happen again.
