News

Warning this is a heavy blog - sorry no humour here.

Watching the News can be a bad thing. Mostly because all it reports is depressive and abhorrent events. Wars, murders and the break down of society. It is not a sobering thing but rather one which draws blood from the psyche. Whatever you are doing, wherever it is, just put on the News and become despondent.

I was thinking it's because the News is shallow. News is centred on recent events for their immediate impact, it gives the raw facts, or rather the facts that can be reported in 3 minutes tops. What it also does is mislead because it leaves out a great deal of information. Sometimes just giving a single fact is like telling a lie. Because the additional information needed for an informed notion of a News event sets context. Every event of the world is set in a context.

In the last few weeks there have been several murders of teenagers in London. By gun and knife. They have been reported as demonising youth and gang culture, what they have not done is try to understand the event. What were the sequence of conditions which led up to the death of this or that person? How then can we as a society learn from them and prevent a repeat? The News therefore is shallow. It gets more viewers by sensationalising. Providing the full facts takes too long. There could be a moral question here in whether this is how News should be presented.

I normally try to add humour into my blogs, but this time I apologize. Our media coverage and our willingness as recipients of information is a contributing factor. I can accept or refuse what I read and watch, but if I accepted without my own questioning then I'd be no more than just another sheep. I cry for each young life taken in the recent violence on the streets of London, and especially in pity for those who don't understand in real terms what they have done when they've held the knife or pulled the trigger.

Well it will soon be Easter, now I wonder when today's children grow up whether they will associate Easter with chocolate eggs or perhaps consider it had another reason?