Any Chewers concerned lately about their kids seeing the news?

[Anne]

Last night, the evening news showed a local woman who confessed to killing her two little girls and burying them in a gravel pit. Every day, and I mean every day, we see reports of terrorist bombings and child molestations. I feel very uncomfortable no matter how I attempt to discuss these reports with him. He also caught some of "Law and Order" last night, that showed a dead infant, enough said.

I am going to take some action, and change things. I am going to take my son, who turns seven next month, in another room when extended family watches the news, to do some reading. I will miss the evening news, but I can get my information from other sources. I will put him first, and not have shows with adult content in his presence. I don't want his perception of the world and people in general to be influenced too much by the limited scope of what television shows him.

Anyone else come to conclusions lately about their kids and media?

[Gist]

It's funny you mention that, because last week a couple buddies and I were watching TV in my basement when the news came on, and we were playfully joking about how negative it is...then we actually started watching it, and something like ten "stories" in a row were all horrid; arson, rape, murder, arson, powerball, theft, arson. It was pretty unreal.

So yeah, the news is pretty vile; but then again, so is humanity.

[Diva]

Originally posted by The_Gistmeister
So yeah, the news is pretty vile; but then again, so is humanity.

For every bad news story there are good news stories. But those don't sell papers or bring in the ratings. Our local Fox station puts all the really cool good samariton stuff into a 30 second montage at the end of the show. As an political activist, it sucked to put weeks/months into an event only to have the media not give a shit because it didn't involve dead babies. I'm not trying to be crass, but that's basically what one reporter told me. I stopped watching the evening news shortly after.

[Chris Allen]

One of the reasons I don't even bother watching news anymore is how sensational every story has to be. The "news" is of course more interested in ratings, so I don't even bother watching.

People watch the news and say "Look how horrible the world is, and all the bad stuff that is happening." Yes, there are bad things shown in the news. But that's the point. It is only "news" because the things they report on, although sometimes horrific, still only happen rarely, which is why they're newsworthy. If it happened to everyone, it wouldn't need to be shown.

That's why I read the paper, and browse the Internet. I have a 3 year old and a 3 month old. Let them watch Sesame Street.

[Matt Goldberg]

Originally posted by Diva
For every bad news story there are good news stories. But those don't sell papers or bring in the ratings.

And I think this leads to the bigger question of "why not"? Do we as a society want this kind of "bleeds-it-leads" news or does the news media just assume that's what we want. Certainly other countries are willing to keep their news relatively clean and fairly mixed with both good and bad news.

[Anne]

Very thoughtful, interesting responses, as usual! Your thoughts have helped me today. Diva, I don't blame you for feeling disgusted. Your work was not wasted, I hope, in spite of things.

The nightly news does have an entertainment and profit component, of course, and I won't whine about it, because I can do other things. Still, I wonder if the people who create it see how borderline ridiculous it is sometimes. It can be great when there is a major disaster or some event that creates a collective national experience.

I tried watching the MacNeil Lehrer report a long time ago, but it was so dry, too dry for my sensationalist American sensibilities, I guess. I had NPR on while I was driving the other day, and it had an interview with some guy who works for the UN, I think, talking about the state of the world today, that it is a mess, and how it is the worst he has seen it since he began his work. Yet, he added that there is no reason to give up hope, and that that there is lots of work to be done. It was just so interesting to hear a sustained conversation with someone who encounters such a scope of humanity every day. I think that's what I liked about it, that it was a sustained conversation.

[Greg Clark]

I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job, the dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter, punks are running wild in the streets, and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air's unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit and watch our tee-vees while some local newscaster tells us today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We all know things are bad. Worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything's going crazy. So we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we live in gets smaller, and all we ask isplease, at least leave us alone in our own living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my tee-vee
and my hair-dryer and my steel-belted radials, and I won't sayanything, just leave us alone. Well, I'm not going to leave you alone. I want you to get mad. I don't want you to riot. I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to write your congressmen. Because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the defense budget and the Russians and crime in the street. All I know is first you got to get mad. You've got to say: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this any more. I'm a human being, goddammit. My life has value." So I want you to get up now. I want you to get out of your chairs and go to the window. Right now. I want you to go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell. I want you to yell: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this any more!"

________

This was written as satire in 1976; today, it's fact.

[kittyinjammies]

Hell, Anne, I don't watch the news, much less let my children watch it. When my five year old asks me questions that have answers that I don't understand, how am I supposed to explain to him what motivates people? What would drive a person to murder their child, rape a woman, bomb innocent people?

I think you are taking steps to raise your child in a healthy, grounded home, but I must caution you, don't insulate him too much.

That raises the question. How much exposure is enough, and how much is too much?

[Brian Ross]

When I was a kid, about maybe 8, 9, or 10. The local channel 7 news has a story on (don't quite remember all the details) something about a husband and a murdered wife? And somehow they sent a reporter and cameraman out to video the guy standing in front of her grave. Or there was some guy he was meeting who had something suspicious to do with her death, some crazy shit.

Anyhoo while the reporter lady is walking up to talk to her the guy standing at the grave shoots the other guy. The reporter and camera guy run off.

But the local news SHOWS the video with out any real warning, otherwise my Mom would have turned it off. It didnt give me nightmares or anything but I've always wondered what the story was about that? Or if anyone got fired for being so fucking stupid.

[Brian Ross]

Also I think it was immensly fucked up when they showed Saddams sons dead on tv. CNN at least warned numerous times that they were about to show dead bodies on the screens, but afterwards they just popped them up there without anything. A kid should not have to fucking see that shit.

[Anne]

G-dude, I'm glad you are mad, and we should get mad too. It's true, if there is any form of brainwashing going on, it's for sure the fact that we are trained from one year age on to spend our lives buying stuff.

[Kronos]

Kids should see all the news and then be instructed as to what's abnormal behavior and normal. Mothers killin' children...abnormal.

[Jason P. Thompson]

If it bleeds, it leads.

Headline News is about the only news I'll watch when my nephew comes over. He doesn't need to see most of the stuff that leads (mainly) the local news.

[Kronos]

Kids don't need to see Al-Quaeda beheadings...such as those which are about to occur(because we all know there'll be another soon). But most of the other stuff? Well, they need to know just how good they've got it by seeing how evil the rest of the World is.

[Doug]

I'm with you Anne. I rarely get my news from television.
Not only do they only report the most grisly of details that a five year old doesn't need to hear, but they do it in such a disgusting manner. The newscaters sound like carnival barkers spewing rhetoric like "A story you can't miss!" "Wait until you see this footage!" "Information about your family's safety you have to hear!". These are all actual quotes.
Don't let those tactics terrify your child.

[Sister Gracie Lou]

Thankfully we have quite a selection of news stations in San Diego. Some are better than others, but most of the time sensationalism is kept to a minimum. When something reaches my daughter that I find objectionable I try to explain to her in terms she can understand that there are bad people in the world who sometimes do bad things, but mostly the world is full of good people like you and me and daddy. That is basically all of the information she needs at her age.

[Doug]

I tell my daughter a wizard did it.

[joker592]

Kids gotta learn sometime that there are people out there that would be all too happy to rape and murder them, and knowledge is Power!

On a side note, I don't have kids.

[Proyas]

It is interesting to note that this is mostly an issue in the United States alone.

My wife is American, she moved to live in Canada and remarked on the fact that our news does not "mass produce fear" as they do in the States.

The real kicker was when her parents came to visit for Christmas. Her mother commented how they feel so "out of the loop" and they "didn't know what was going on" in the world while they were here visiting.

Plain and simple, America sells fear. These things occur in Canada (not to the magnitude, we have 10% of your population) but it is not mass broadcast every hour on the hour.

[Anne]

Proyas, that's part of Michael Moore's thesis in "Bowling for Columbine", what you put in a phrase, that American news mass-produces fear. It's and interesting thing to consider. Thanks for your "out of the loop" insight.

Kitty, I do agree, I must not shelter my son too much. I don't want him to be unprepared for the world.

[Hexx]

I can't tell you how much better my life has been since I filtered all forms of television news out.

If I had a kid, I wouldn't let them near the news period.

[Lady Snowblood]

What an interesting topic.

I would much rather have my kids (and I do not have any) watch the daily news, than to watch a movie where say a murder or rape was depicted. Now, this is not to say I would shelter my kids from all forms of entertainment because I won't, but with the news I think only good can come from it.

I believe a person should learn about the ills of this world at a very young age (around five) because it will greater prepare them when they are older, mature and ready to live their life under their own circumstances. Yes, I do think the news media in this country breeds fear, however this fear comes from those that are afraid to confront these problems and are unable to talk about them openly. It's fine to make us aware of such problems, always reminding us, but I think many parents would rather avoid talking about murder, rape, racism to their kids, and I think that's wrong and it hurts both parties. Learning about this at an early age will help kids understand their surroundings better, understand how people work, appreciate the goodness of this world (there is some) and other cultures aside from their own.

I would hate to watch the news and it were chock full o' sentiment; that's not real and it's idealistic. If I wanted that, I'd watch the Disney Channel, in fact, Disney as a corporation has done more harm to this country than any news group ever can. Now that's something I will happily ban my kids from taking any part in: Disney.

On a side note, if I did have a child that were eight years old (at the youngest), this summer, I'd be taking him or her to see Battle of Algiers. Great film people: entertaining, insightful, violent, observant, and unbiased.

[Shelby]

Just out of curiosity what ages of children are we talking about here? I just recently had to curb a couple of things that I felt were just affecting my 6 year old too much. One was the news. She would get very upset over a lot of the things she would hear about and just go on and on about them. She had a hard time sleeping and was just generally afraid a lot. I have no problem in letting her know that, yes there are people out there and that she needs to be careful, but when it starts to affect her daily life like that I just felt that it would be better to break her away from that. Not for a very long time of course, because I don't want her to be living in a bubble, but I also don't like it when my 6 year old has something like a panic attack.

The other thing that I had to take away was the discovery health website. How odd is that? She would read up on various diseases and illnesses and such, and while making her very knowledgeable about these things she would also start to project the illnesses on herself. Many a day she would tell me that she was suffering from heart disease or if she had a headache she must have a brain tumor. Insane.

So between those two things I decided if I wanted a happier, less stressed child I had to take away some things. I'm not sure when would be a good time to introduce those things back in, but maybe a newspaper would be better, less traumatic? That way she could get a good variety instead of all the worst right away.

[Mr. Freeze]

Kent Brockman: Hello, I'm Kent Brockman! Our top stories tonight: a tremendous explosion in the price of lumber, President Reagan dyes.... his hair, plus Garry Trudeau and his new musical comedy revue. But first! Let's check the death count from the killer storm bearing down on us like a shotgun full of snow.

Weatherman: Well, Kent, as of now the death count is zero. But it is ready to shoot right up.

Kent Brockman: Oh my God. Damn you snow!

[Diva]

Lady Snowblood, I hear what you are saying about wanting to teach your kids about the ills of the world, but the nightly news is not the way to do it. They don't give you the whole truth and often distort what is really happening to get ratings. I know in NYC, crime has gone down significantly in recent years, but you'd never know it by watching the news. They make it seem like someone is getting murdered every 5 seconds and that's simply not the case.

And seeing that much violence does alter the way one views the world. I'd rather have my children grow up a little sheltered and have innocence than be bitter, cynical mini-adults like so many kids I see today. See Dakota Fanning. She scares me.

[kingcujoI]

This is a really valid media topic, and one that just leads to a rush of thoughts and ideas when you ponder it. The most striking thing about Moore's Bowling for Columbine was his condemnation of the U.S. Media. His theory was/is that the media begets the violence in our nation by constantly sensationalizing and re-reporting it. Crime rates go down annually, reports and air time for violent acts increase exponentially.

Comparison of our news to Canada shows an amazing difference. Canadian News Media examine community and social issues, ours of course examine who got raped by what rabid animal that was also shot by a paroled Ted Levine fan. Even the bulk of entertainment print news media is dominated by this. EW and US barraged us with crap and are gobbled up while decent mags like MOVIE INSIDER struggle for shelf space at Barnes and Noble (and on a side note, does anyone get creeped out by the 40-50 year old guys who work at Barnes and Noble and have that wierd mustache thing going on)

Our news media hardly conveys any sense of the real world. One post above said that keeping children from watching the news is shielding them from reality. This is hardly the case.

The news business is profit oriented. Others hit it right on the head when they said the US media's job is to sell fear.

What does that bring us too, the downfall of collective sanity and morality is caused by our government controlled capitalism. Call me subversive, or even a nut. Many societal problems just keep coming back to this. But that is another topic for another time.