Okay, right now, I'm disgusted, appalled, pissed, and any other other synonymous word you want to throw in there. I've had harsh words for the media, and the sports media specifically, on a number of occasions, but the events of the last 24-36 hours take the cake, as far as I'm concerned.
Allow me to give you some background before I jump into my beef with the sports media. I started listening to sports talk radio again after a lengthy hiatus back in August, as the events of the Michael Vick dogfighting case were coming to a head, culminating with his guilty plea. My daily listening routine involves all/parts of 3 different sports talk shows, and I listened as each one of those shows stayed on the Vick story for days on end, literally only going elsewhere for a few minutes every hour. There might have been one development a day, if that, and yet you had the constant parade of calls, guests, etc all going over everything, speculating, and wearing out my ears. August is admittedly a rather slow month for sports, but you had things going on like preseason football and baseball heating up for the playoff run. As much as I thought the coverage was overblown, I had to concede that it was the biggest story going, and I comforted myself with the idea that a story of similar gravity would get the same kind of treatment.
So, with that in mind, when I heard the news yesterday that Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor was in critical condition and fighting for his life after being shot in his home early Monday morning, I tuned in to my normal shows, expecting to get wall to wall coverage of the situation. A couple of the shows gave it a passing mention, one didn't touch on it all. I was surprised, but kept moving. Then, this morning, when I heard that Taylor had passed away, I thought "Okay, now we'll get the wall to wall." While it was obviously discussed in a significant way, it was nowhere near the dominant topic. On two of the shows, it was probably outdone in terms of time spent on a topic by last night's terrible Monday night football game. To add to my frustration, when one of the shows discussed it, they felt the need to bring up some of the unsavory details of Taylor's past, as if they somehow made a 24 year old man being gunned down in his own home only feet away from his infant child any less tragic.
Am I completely off base in being concerned and frustrated that our media believes (and I'm honestly not sure they are wrong) that our attention as a nation is more easily captivated by a professional athlete getting caught up in a dogfighting ring than it is by a professional athlete being tragically murdered? Look, I don't think any story deserves the kind of 24 hour coverage that the Vick story got, but if you're going to go that route, how does the Sean Taylor news not completely trump it? Now, I've heard the arguments before that we're desensitized to human violence by other things, but that doesn't wash with me. High-profile murder cases command national attention all the time. Perhaps as more details unfold, things will change, but I'm really doubting that it will ever become the kind of dominant story that Vick and other story before him were. Perhaps, as a media, and as a culture, we all need a little perspective shift here.
9 months ago
4 comments:
I don't think you're off base at all.
Perhaps it has something to do with the mindset: "I don't and won't ever pit dogs against each other. It's terrible. So, I can talk about it at length and not feel that twinge of conscious." Rather than: "I will die someday. Rather than face death (and more personally, my own mortality), I'll talk about something else."
Maybe. :)
Hmmmmmm. You got all deep and philosophical there.
Keep that kind of stuff on Micah's blog, darn it! ;-)
Seriously though, I did consider the uncomfortable nature of dealing with death, and I think that does play a role, but it's not the sole explanation, or even the biggest one, in my opinion, since as I mentioned, we have zero trouble making high profile murders/deaths the big story nationally under different circumstances.
Sean Taylor was an excellent player, maybe even a great one, but Michael Vick was a star. To be honest, I don't think there's much more to the disparity than that. Had this happened to Michael Vick, it would be an enormous story.
By the way, were I reporting the story, I too would be bringing up the unsavory details of Taylor's past. And I'm certainly not saying that he deserved to get shot. My guess is that it's not precisely an accident that his home was being broken into. I'm guessing Mr. Taylor had some rather unsavory friends and acquaintances. I'll be surprised if this turns out to just be a random burglary. Certainly, Mr. Taylor's arrest for armed assault, when he allegedly pointed a gun at someone who had allegedly stolen two ATVs from him, seems germane to this story (later coming back and allegedly punching someone). This is a man with something of a history of being robbed from, with the involvement of firearms.
Allegedly, his home had been broken into only a couple of weeks before and, again allegedly, a knife had been left on his bed. Allegedly, Mr. Taylor armed himself with a machete when he heard the intruder. I don't know about you, but I don't have a machete in my home. (And from what I've heard, it doesn't sound like Mr. Taylor lived on a ranch.)
I'm not running down Sean Taylor; I certainly don't think he deserved to be shot and killed, no matter what he had done. But his death was, I am nearly sure, partly the result of a long string of bad decisions made by a not terribly mature young man. And that's part of the story (if anybody wants to report it).
Hopefully, we'll see if I'm right or wrong in the next few weeks and Mr. Taylor's killer will be brought to justice.
I guess I should say that it wasn't THAT this particular host brought up the details of the unsavory past (he was not the first to do so), it was just the tone and manner in which he brought it up.
Your suggestion that Vick being murdered would be a story that would rise to the level of his legal troubles intrigued me, and got me thinking in a way that ended up shedding a lot of light on this for me. I decided I disagree with that statement, at least as it specifically applies to Vick, and rather than a long comment elaborating on that, I'm going to do a follow up post later this afternoon/evening.
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