To all the people who sit in public places and loudly and openly discuss and make comments about people they read about in the paper.
Next time you decide to speak aloud and rudely about the people who’s actions make the news, remind yourself that those people have relatives. And those relatives, dont deserve to have you come into their place of work and loudly put down and insult their family for twenty minutes because you have nothing better to talk about, and you lack the common decency to at least wait until you are in the privacy of your own home or vehicle to speak about someone elses business. How would you feel if the situation was reversed???
Develop some common courtesy and think before you speak.
This article appears in Jul 24-30, 2008.
um…if they’re in the news…isn’t it a good thing that people are interested enough in current affairs to discuss them? I think if you’ve put yourself int he public eye enough to be int he paper, it’s part of thea greement that people will discuss your actions. now, do people always limit their discussion to the actions of this person that were newsworthy? no. often it degenerates into unfounded personality attacks. but what of it? it’s a public figure. if their family is offended, frankly, I’d be more upset with the figure who did whatever was int he paper that meritted discussion…unless that passerby is coming up to you specifically and saying ‘your relative is a jerkbag’, I don’t see waht the big deal is.
free country. freedom of speech.
Oh look, someone got offended again, and wants everyone to keep their opinions to themselves. They’re judging our lack of common decency.Well, you can fuck right off, we’re allowed to speak our minds.
I think this Bitch was more about general ill-mannered loud mouths who announce their ill-informed opinions to everyone within listening distance, which is pretty far because they use their built in megaphones to get attention.You know, the idiots that you always get stuck having right behind you on the bus or whatever.
as far as the volume goes, yes, no need to be all loud and shit,but if they have the name in print, you can be someone is going to talk about it. Its one of the downfalls of having your name in print. Suck it up, news is meant to be discussed and if you do something newsworthy, its part of the territory.
Partially agree, hedgy. For one reason only. A friend I work with had her daughter brutally murdered back at the beginning of the year. The last thing a family member at a bus stop wants to hear is someone dicussing the gory and sickeneing details of her murder. As for politicians being assholes and gas prices and other things unhurtful to others, go to town. We are all human though, and may not just realize what we’re saying, or just nervous or lonely and want a little human contact. But just watch what you say. I did everything I damn well could to NOT hear the things done to my friend’s daughhter, and to hear someone talk about it, maybe even have the nerve to say “she deserved it” or have the bigger nerve to make a JOKE about it, makes me want to vomit, honestly.RIP Jennifer….still thinking about you! <3
no doubt, people can be obnoxious and distastefull a lot of the time. I’m sorry to hear about your friends daughter-t hat’s a tough situation. unfortunatly though, people are going to discuss things- we’re a social species, after all. the best one can hope for when it comes to disturbing content like that is that people will realize when it’s an appropriate venue and volumn- if not for people who could have known the victim or people concerned (I don’t think most people make that connection), but mabe because a kid could be overhearing you at a bus stop or something like that.on the other hand though, this argument could be taken as far as trying to censor what makes it into print to save the family and friends problems. should the media not have run that story abotu your friends daughter becuase it may have been difficult for you and others who knew the victim to hear about? or was it more important for society as a whole to hear that story>I know of one story, where a man was arraigned for dealing drugs. instead of appearing in court, he mailed in the fine. and the judge accepted it! the story appeared and later there were a string of calls from this fellows mother, girlfriend, etc bitching about how dare the newspaper run that, it makes him look horrible, his reputation was ruined.this goes back to the idea quite simply that the media didn’t ruin that persons reputation. the people inevitably discussing it didn’t ruint hat mans reputation. the man himself did it.
my mom always says, “…you never know who’s listening”
I do agree with that, hedgy. I think the extent to which the media described this was not even CLOSE to being necessary. No one needed to know the grotesque things she went through in her last hours. It for sure was too much for people not to talk about, I agree — but you said 2 key words — venue and volume. And the children issue, they would be scared to death to leave their house if they heard that stuff. TV had nothing on it. The media just had to print it, not because we NEEDED to know, but because it sells papers. And I think that is despicable. It’s bad enough what her family had to hear from the police and to see her body the way it was, she couldn’t even make it a private family matter — she now had everyone she knew knowing and never being able to look at the pain in her eyes again, because she knew that we knew. She actually warned us all the day before it was going to be in the paper, hence we could make the choice to read or not. Of course, I heard from eveyone else anyway. They have the murderers — why print such hurtfulness?? I think in this case, being they were caught, there was NO need for everyone to know those particular details. It actually made me physically sick. Venue and volume….exactly.
Again, I’m sorry for your experience….but maybe people did need to hear that. or maybe the reporter just needed to tell it- eitehr because it made it a better story, their editor was telling them they had to, or because they had to wade through all the grotesque police imagery that the average person or even freind of the victim (you didn’t have to interview the cops or look at crime scene photos- or at least not generally) has to, and needed to exorcise that themselves.again, it’s tough. but if we want free press, we have to be willing tot ake both sides of that- and that means not restricting content. there’s good taste, but that can quickly bleed into censorship. and I’d rather have teh occasionally story pop up that was in bad taste, or a little excessive, then be missing out on things because the media has gotten into the habit of censoring itself.