News networks drive me crazy

by Susie
(USA)

No, I don't mean to say news networks drive me crazy with their plethora of sad stories. That I can stand. But what I can't stand is when news networks bring their own biases or something into their station and let it affect what they're saying. Some of them do it sneakily, but others are outright sensationalistic! They pander to our emotions and try to get a rise out of us by using words like "evil" to try and appeal to our moral senses. But these things differ from person to person, and while I have a sense of right and wrong like everyone else, I hate the narrow religious implications of the word "evil", for example.

And on a similar note--this ties in very well with the recent disasters in Haiti. I absolutely hate when news stations report on disasters in foreign countries, but the only numbers they state are that of US citizens hurt, missing, or killed in the tragedy. Obviously, since it's a foreign country, the numbers of native people who are hurt/missing/dead, are going to be much higher. But no, that doesn't matter, does it? It's like the only numbers I'm supposed to care about are the people in my country, not the masses of humanity in general suffering through such a tragedy!

I get the feeling the news stations feel like they have to cater to our basest emotions of religion and nationalism (and things like that) to motivate us enough to feel the need to take interest or help. And that's wrong, because as humans we should feel that need no matter what, right?

Stuff like that just makes me want to punch things and throw things and tear my hair out!