Freedom of the press is an important element of democracy. It’s supposed to ensure an informed populace. Unfortunately, my local news is falling down on the job, instead serving up pablum about a 3 year old hippo who might be able to predict the results of the Super Bowl.. because she nudged the ball labled with the winning team once. The other year, she nudge the ball labled with the losing team. So she’s really got quite the record... *head desk*
Earlier in the so-called “news”, they had a rather alarmist story about a rising number of assualts against healthcare workers. (And just to be clear, I’m not saying that healthcare workers aren’t being assaulted, I’m commenting on the TONE of the report). They advertised the segment on the news yesterday, rather like a drama show showing the most tittilating clips of next week’s episode. The entire story seemed to be comprised of statistics with little to no context. The only potential reason for the rising number of assaults the story offered was that there were more people on drugs and alcohol and more people with mental illness. Even if statics showed a corresponding increase in mental illness and drug and alcohol use, those are not causes in and of themselves but often are symptoms of a larger societal il... Like rising costs of essential medications? The continuing stigmas applied to mental illness? A President that encourages disrepect of science and who publicly embraces baseless conspiracy theories? In addition to ignoring potential causes for the uptick in assaults, the “solutions” offered were mostly reactive rather than proactive: press charges against patients, teach nurses self defense, more security in hospitals. I will admit that they said they were putting up more signs to let people know that assaulting a healthcare worker is a felony, though I doubt most of the perpetrators were really thinking about repercussions when they acted. As I recall from my criminal justice classes, potential punishment is rarely an effective deterrent.
And what of the topic that a responsible press should definitely be covering, the Impeachment Trial currently ongoing in the US Senate? The local news impied that the Impeachment trial was the only thing keeping the Senate from ‘doing its job’ and passing legislation that would make assaulting healthcare workers a federal crime rather than simply a state crime. They then mentioned that the trial was probably coming to a end soon as a “key GOP” senator said there was no need for any further evidence and followed that by reporting that Trump had called House Manager Schiff “a very sick person”. The overall flavor was that the trial was just a pointless excercise perpetuated by one of the mentally ill people who are theoretically the ones attacking nurses, EMTs and other healthcare workers in Ohio.
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