The ostensible premise of HLN’s Raising America is to “look at the news the way parents do”. Instead this show appears to be just another conduit for whatever salacious news of the day is trending. This morning the opportunist insertion of the Jodi Arias trial contained no meaningful reflection on its relevance to families and the messages that parents might communicate to children with reference to this case. The ubiquitous “Dr. Drew”, “reality” TV’s popular medic, Drew Pinsky, in a predictable pseudo-concerned “psychological” summation, contributed some vague, perfunctory token afterthoughts after two un-debated segments and a gratuitous showing of a video of Arias that might be interpreted in a multitude of ways, along with an interview clip of unsubstantiated claims bordering on slander by the couple who provided the highly speculative video.
Pinsky’s advice only concerned sexual “chastity”, sexual boundaries and teaching children about self-respect for their bodies – nothing beyond what young people might hear from a moralizing religious leader at a church youth group. The video content had little, if nothing, to do with sexual mores, apart from Pinsky’s highly subjective interpretation of Arias’ sleepy behavior as sexually “kittenish”.
That Pinsky should have homed in solely on the sexual aspect, despite the multitude of relational themes that this trial throws up for discussion, is typical of HLN’s preoccupation with the salacious. Nancy Grace, disgraced former Georgia prosecutor and Jane Velez-Mitchell, “daughter of a dancer”, bemoan, night after night, the overwhelming amount of time devoted in this case to Arias’ detailed descriptions of her sexual relationship with victim Travis Alexander, yet the main items on their routinely defendant-bashing shows are “bombshell” repetitive re-showings of the sexual testimony followed by sarcastic comments on the “wild” and “kinky” sex.
A suggestion for Raising America: how about a discussion on how the wholly condemnatory, mocking and cynical tone with which this trial is being covered, a tone that frequently descends into laughing at extremely distasteful jokes, led by such crass purveyors of sensationalism as anchor-come-talking-head Vinnie Politan, might be affecting the attitudes of parents, children and young people? Any susceptible person who watches HLN learns that the acceptable “adult” stance towards people you don’t like or who you suspect to have behaved badly is to make snide remarks, disbelieve EVERYTHING they say, find as many aspects of their personality or actions to mock and ridicule as possible, spread tawdry stories about them based on scant, unsubstantiated or distorted evidence, and that social enjoyment and a sense of group self-righteousness is to be had with like-conditioned friends through indulging in general character assassination of a person well before all the facts and true contexts of those facts are known – fundamentally to reduce the despised person to something less than human. Parents who absorb these values from the media transmit them to their children, and given that HLN does not reserve this kind of coverage for late evening viewing, no doubt many children come home from school to have these values reinforced in their family rooms.
Perhaps Raising America could follow with a debate as to whether there is any association between these media and societal messages and the fact that the United States is suffering from an epidemic of bullying and emotionally stunted children and young people. Given HLN’s focus on heinous crime and defendants, I see no programming that encourages parents to teach children that all people are complex individuals with redeeming as well as reprehensible character traits, that it is possible to abhor acts while attempting to make some unbiased sense out of where they came from in a person’s psyche, and that the feasibility of rehabilitation and integration should be the primary exploration of society. Given the coterie of psychologists, therapists and psychiatrists that HLN retains to give “expert” opinions, it is surprising that these issues are never explored in any depth.
People who are direct victims of crimes have a prerogative to feel hate and vengefulness towards perpetrators – the disclaiming and oft cited “how would you feel if….?” – but the responsibility of society, particularly through the educational potential of the media, is to balance that natural, personal reaction with principles of dispassionate analysis, reflection, debate and resolution. Unfortunately these two distinctions are being increasingly and severely eroded by the media’s, and society’s unthinking acceptance of sensational and condemnatory media messages, and we are raising Americans who are no more sophisticated or compassionate in their thinking than the pitchfork-wielding mobs at the Salem Witch Trials.
If what HLN’s Raising America propagates is representative of looking “at the news the way parents do”, then heaven help the next generation of Americans….
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