Media Macabre

By Meg Curtis, PhD

Tonight, July 23, 2012, CNN pasted a celebration of life front and center on its website. This layout was unusual for two reasons:

      The celebrated are dead.

      Their usual fare is suffering and elsewhere.

Why does it take an American atrocity to bring out a call for a birthday party in this media giant? Is Edgar Allan Poe their director?

All the happy faces on their photographic collage are now in the morgue or already buried. How macabre can you get?

Here is their lead:

Honoring the victims of the massacre

Stories of heroism, zest for life and a birthday celebration emerged as family and friends spoke of loved ones killed in the mass shooting at an Aurora movie theater. Anderson Cooper remembers the fallen. 

      Wouldn't it be just charming if the media considered the following possibilities?

      

      Why not let nuns fly again?

        Have they looked to find reliable coaches?

       Have they found kids who can actually read at grade level?

        Can they discover a politician who is more honest than the media?

            Is their fixation on death indicative of a healthy state of mind in journalism?

We need more than an ombudsman for the American people. We need watchdogs who can verify that Edgar Allan Poe really is in his grave and not running the media macabre show here.

We want safe schools, and we want the latest reports on progress in that direction.

We want safe theaters, where the Joker stays behind the screen and inside his movie.

We want safe communities, where people can gossip without the media claiming they’re racist.

We want sensible campaigns—for about two weeks, AND NO LONGER!

Is that really too much to ask in the greatest country in the world?