Remember respect
The Brussels attacks yesterday made me go in to a state of numb shock. Seeing a heavy police force in the train station in the morning made my stomach turn. While people around me were discussing what happened, I couldn’t get my head past the state of “why?” Why, why, why?
We all react different to everything. Especially acts as horrific as these. And that’s okay.
But what is not okay with me? Treating news like this like gossip. I heavily remember this bothering me after the Boston Marathon bombing – the way people discussed the event, all excited, waiting for the next bit of information. It made me go in to isolation for a bit. I couldn’t deal with it.
Part of the problem is the way the news portrays things – everything is sensational*! They seem to want you to get all jacked up and emotional. I can see why people do!
But I wish people would think before they speak about these things. Consider their tone. Remember to have some respect for the situation, and especially, respect for the people there and the lives taken.
Maybe I am just being overly sensitive, as I feel overly helpless.
*I never saw the effect of this more clearly than when I was with a young kid and we happened to walk by a TV sharing a story about a loose snake in Florida and all of a sudden they were worried snakes were going to be outside. We walked by that TV for a few seconds!
Themocracy
I can’t wrap my head around it either.I grew up very close to the border with Northern Ireland. When the “troubles” as they were called were bad we got the N.Ireland news and everyday it was ….this person shot, a bomb went off here, it’s reported very differently there quite solemnly and without debate about motives etc etc. you get kind of numb to it but very weary. I just hope they don’t continue.
I hope they don’t continue too. But I am really afraid it’s going to get worse.
It must have been a bit scary being so close to the border during that time! It is good to hear the news was somber about it. Is the news still that way there?
I think it’ll get worst too, I hope not.
It didn’t really affect me, sometimes they found guns or explosives in the area around where I lived but most of the violence was far enough away. No it’s not like that at all anymore. They made an agreement 15 years ago between all the groups involved and other than sporadic shootings by splinter groups it’s like night and day thank goodness.
Man! That close?! Crazy. How did your parents react?!
Sorry, I meant, is the news still reported like that?
Ha ha sorry yes most news is fairly impartial except for one station that has a more American style of reporting.
I don’t really remember them reacting much, I think it was just so normal, we even used to pass through giant army checkpoints to cross into the north to go to a outdoor market.
It was just part of your normal! Wow.
Everything you said above. I can’t really add anything else to it. and you are not overly sensitive, trust me.
I only watch BBC world now because by law they have to remain impartial while reporting news. It is a far cry from the CNN/FOX etx of America. They also do not speculate and hype the news like their American counterparts.
And I’ll stop before I get myself into trouble with how I feel about some other lip service/arm chair activist type things I see each time something awful like this happens which makes my skin crawl. Sigh. Hugs to you. 🙁
Thanks for understanding. I kind of felt like I was being crazy when I wrote this, but I DO encounter quite a few people who act this way. It sounds like you may too.
I wish more people would consider their news source! And realize that sometimes they are just being puppets and repeating what they hear instead of thinking about it and processing it themselves. :-/
You can save that for email :-*
Hugs!
I woke up yesterday to the news of the Brussels attacks, then read a favorite blogger who wrote about having to put her dog down, and it was also the day of the funeral for a blogger/fb friend’s 21 year old son…I emailed a friend (fellow blogger) and told her that I couldn’t internet that day. And it helped. Because sometimes, you just can’t do anything to make it better.
Wow. What a total shit day 🙁 Huge hugs to you.
Yeah, pretty much. But way worse for the others.
I think Xaarlin hit the nail on the head for what bothers me about the news reporting these days – obvious bias, and even more so, all the speculation! Clearly they’re filling air time (which is a result of the 24 hour news cycle), but a lot of that speculation can cause a lot of damage. It’s often way off-base once we find out facts, and I think a lot of people take their speculation to BE fact.
As for your post… I also wish people would think first before just vomiting out whatever comes to mind, and definitely have some respect for what actually happened. Sigh. I always think about how traumatic something like that must be for those closest to the situation, but that often gets lost.
They do! And it’s scary! People will believe anything they hear/read!
I don’t think you’re overly sensitive, I feel the same way. After things like this, I have to stop watching the news for a while because it just makes me feel worse the way they treat it 🙁
Exactly. 🙁 Then I feel like I am ignoring it, but I just need to process it quietly.
I used to feel guilty about it too but then I decided that watching wasn’t actually making anything better and so since it wasn’t having any sort of positive impact, why do it when it made me feel worse? I will read the pure news articles in the Washington Post since I feel like those are more neutral sources of information.
Couldn’t agree more. Not overly sensitive I look at is at more realistic than dramatic. So many people love the drama and thrive on talking about others. I pull away, educate myself on the situations and don’t talk about them with anyone. I am not here to make my own opinions and talk about something like it is a movie. This is real life for some people. I’m very thankful I haven’t had to be up close and personal with it myself.
Yep. It’s those people. Ugh. I do the same thing as you. I rarely talk about this stuff – so people probably don’t see me as a very serious person since I keep it to myself!
I agree with you. I don’t really watch the news, my biggest pet peeve is internet comments. People use these tragedies to bicker with each other over any and every political issue they can think of. Like why do you need a tragedy as an excuse to argue over gun control and immigration? Don’t you all do that enough already? I need to just stay off Facebook. People make me so mad. Grief and tragedy are not a competition.
Oh man. Do stay off Facebook. Even if it’s not people bickering, it’s those using tragedy for attention that will make you nuts.
(I will really never understand why people want to have arguments on FB – like, provoke them on purpose. Don’t get it.)
I think it is, in part, because of the 24-hour news cycle but I have been long bothered by people’s necessity to feel connected to a certain event. It’s as if the tragedy is not important unless they can draw a personal relationship to it. And the gossip part helps with that. This idea, for me, was never so clear as it was with 9/11. People would make comments like, “Oh, I lived in Pennsylvania and one of the planes went down in Pennsylvania.” That fact doesn’t change what happened. Three months later, I went to Israel and people had legitimate connections to terrorism and violence. Family members and friends were on buses that were bombed – it wasn’t just that they rode the bus sometime.
As someone who works in the media, I sometimes feel defensive of the coverage. However, I don’t always watch or participate in much of it outside of my role so it’s not fair.
I think people do that because they immediately think “what if I was there? If it would have happened at xyz time, it could have been me.” Doing that is probably part of their way of processing it (and being thankful they WEREN’T there). But… trying to make it anything more than that (a way of processing it)? Eh, don’t make it about YOU, people.
You don’t have to be defensive! It’s how the industry is now – you didn’t make it that way 🙂
Very true.
So … at lunch, I went to JCPenney to pick up a dress I had ordered and decided to pop into the salon to get my brows done. While I was having my soul … er, hair … ripped out, I overheard a woman asking her stylist if she was following it. Seriously! Of all things to ask about. IMO, heavy political/news talk does not belong in the salon.
UGH! Why?! That is not small talk! Something similar is what inspired me to write this – I am in work training and got to class early yesterday and the instructor asked the four students in the classroom (this was before she’d said anything else) “Did anyone claim the attacks yet?” Sigh.
Amen, sister! Don’t even get me started on the news media and their sensationalism just to “be the first one to break the story.” I lost a lot of respect for news stations like CNN during the Malaysian airline search for the callous and insensitive way some folks handled the reporting. GRRRRRR…
Yep! And to make it worse… that is all we are seeing! They are barely reporting a fraction of the news, and poorly!!!
This. Every last word. I agree on all counts.
WELL SAID. Watching the news has become downright painful for me, so I honestly just listen to the highlights on my commute to work. Our current society makes me very sad.