The Death of Dignity

I'm not a really big TV watcher. But I do like to have the TV on in the morning. It just seems friendlier. I almost always watch the Today Show. And usually I like the Today Show. I usually turn the TV to channel six the night before and then when I turn it on between 8 and 9, I can rewind it and watch just the parts I want to see. Thus skipping past the local news and weather, which I watch once but I hate seeing the same thing three or more times an hour.

I also skip past segments that I find boring. Well yesterday there was a segment on that really bothered me.

First a little background though.

The Today Show is really big on telling tragic stories. Stories of disasters. Stories of great harm. Stories of great loss. The thing that really disturbs and annoys me is that they LOVE to put the people involved in these tragic, harmful, disastrous stories of loss on the air to talk about,

HOW THEY FEEL.

It really makes me sick. Gee your whole school has been shot up by a really angry kid who couldn't take the bullying anymore.

HOW DO YOU FEEL? CAN YOU DESCRIBE WHAT IT FELT LIKE?

Hey you just watched a devastating tornado blow your whole town away.

CAN YOU TELL US WHAT IT WAS LIKE TO SEE THIS HAPPEN RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU? HOW ABOUT YOUR CHILDREN? HOW DO YOU THINK THEY HAVE BEEN AFFECTED?

I hate this kind of cheap, voyeuristic, tawdry kind of intrusion that passes for real news these days.

The thing that makes me the most angry are the people that are a part of the tragedy who are so willing to sell themselves out just to be on TV.

If my family experienced a horrible disaster and lost everything including one of our own or neighbors or friends, you can be sure that the first time someone tried to stick a microphone in my face and ask me HOW DO YOU FEEL?

Well lets just say that they would need to get a new microphone.

This is how I feel. I can't believe the people who are willing to sell their selves out for a few moments of notoriety.

So yesterday morning I'm watching the Today Show and of course there are all the horribly sad stories of death and destruction. There have been so many natural disasters lately that I am starting to think that these really are the last days. Now one of the most awful things they showed was a house on a lake in one of the I states.

Indiana, Illinois, I can't keep track.

Anyway, this house had been completely swept away by this huge flood. I'm sure that several of you have probably seen the footage. It was really a sad thing to watch. So the next thing they say is "We will have the family who's house this was, on right after these messages." Okay, time for a few commercials. Then we are back to the Today Show. " Alright, we now go to Anne ( I think it was Anne) who is with the blah, blah, blah, family, who's house we have just watched being swept away. Yes here we are standing on what is left of their property. Cue to Anne standing there with the mom and dad, and, (I was sickened to see) their three little girls!

Well Mr Blah, Blah, Blah, can you tell us what happened here?

What happened here???? Isn't it painfully obvious from the footage that has been shown at least twenty times, what has HAPPENED here?

And the man, oh the man, he is obviously in his element. He goes on and on about what they've lost and how they didn't have flood insurance because the insurance co. could never get their figures straight. Yeah, he's building up a pretty good head of steam, when I happen to look at his oldest daughter.

This poor little girl was by my guesstimate around nine or ten. Now I take nine or ten year olds pretty personally. My oldest granddaughter, my precious Abbey is nine going on ten. Jan's sweet little daughter Mattie just turned ten.

Yes I take it pretty personal.

And what is this poor little oldest daughter doing? She is trying her hardest not to cry is what she is doing. I look at this dear little girl as she listens to her father going on and on about how they have lost everything and how they have no idea what they will do for the near future, (well actually, I think he said they would have to live with relatives for the time being.) And all the while that he is having his big moment in the spotlight, his little girl just looks more and more crushed.

I was so angry.

What kind of parent exposes a child, who has just witnessed something no child should ever have to witness, to such a travesty, as having to be on camera for the whole world to drink in her sorrow?

What kind of parent indeed?

What has happened to us as a people to be so careless with these most precious gifts that our children are?

Why are people so willing to give up their dignity for the opportunity to spend some time in the spotlight? And why on earth do they drag their children along with them? And why does the Today Show and all the other News/Magazine shows encourage these people to do it?

And I guess what I really have to ask myself, is why do I watch it?

I don't even have a good answer to that. All I know if I am to be honest is that watching shows that one moment will be showing something horrible like this and then after the commercials and local news breaks they will have a segment on the "Coolest Clothes This Hot Summer" is that I myself am part of the problem.

HOW DOES THAT MAKE YOU FEEL?