Not that I think the presidential election isn’t important, but the impact that it’s been having on the news is getting to be a little exhausting. Aside from the dozens of political attack ads that are impossible to avoid, I find that I am being bombarded with stories I really don’t care about.
In the last couple of weeks, I have not been able to read or watch the news without hearing endlessly about Wallace County High School in Kansas. The students there made a video titled “We Are Hungry.” The video is an amateurish rip-off the band Fun’s “We Are Young.” The parody was written by an English teacher at the school, and the children performed a routine for it.
The video is in response to the 2010 congress ruling to pass new health restrictions in high schools--a fight to avoid the 2030 prediction of a 42% obesity rate.
I wont even get into what the new restrictions entail, because I don’t care. Seriously, how is this news? It seems like the only purpose of making such a big deal out of it is to spark political debate given the current election.
What’s worse, is that stories of actual importance are being given the political spin. Earlier in September, when US embassy was attacked in Benghazi, Mitt Romney immediately jumped on the opportunity to harshly criticize Obama. The coverage of the attacks from that point on, seemed to center around support for either Romney or Obama, and not necessarily why the creator of the offense and poorly edited film might be to blame, or perhaps the extreme muslim violence that the video instigated. The media yet again finds a new way to spark a political fire.
I do think that politics and current events, both nationally and internationally have a strong correlation to one another. I think that should be addressed, but not exploited.
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