"How Do You Feel?"

[Pab Sungenis]

I nearly felt like vomiting trying to watch mainstream news coverage of the Virginia Tech situation. The more I heard these alleged journalists ask people "how do you feel?" the more my mind flashed back to my college days.

I was the production director at our campus radio station, and I was running the board for a recorded interview our news director was conducting with Julian Bond (who, I might add, was one of the friendliest and most intelligent people I'd ever had a chance to meet). When she used the phrase "how did you feel" in a question, he went off on a tear. He spent a good two minutes complaining about the tabloidization of journalism (which was really getting a death grip on the industry back then, in the late '80's) and especially about the phrase "how do you feel." He used the example of a journalist who asked a mother outside a fire how she felt. "Well, how the devil do you think she feels? Her CHILD has just BURNED to death!"

That was the moment that I realized that I did not want to be a journalist. The continued deterioration of what passes for news in America today just reinforces my belief that I made the right decision.

It should be obvious how the families of the victims at Virginia Tech feel. It should be obvious how the students who watched the carnage felt. It should be obvious how the families of the "collateral damage" in Iraq feel. There's no point in asking those questions. If we really want a revealing answer, maybe Helen Thomas (since she's the only person left with guts enough to do it) should ask Chucklenutz:

"Mister President, your lies have caused the needless death of nearly 3,500 American servicemen and nearly half a million Iraqi citizens....

"...how do you feel?"

©2007 P. Sungenis, All Rights Reserved

[blondeatlast]

1. It's the ultimate in voyeurism, IMHO.

It isn't news and it's none of our business.

Almost to the point of obscenity--it serves no redeeming purpose whatsoever, it's simply to bring us "closer" to the victims and their families--when the victims' families need the shelter of the familiar more than ever.

It's too bad you changed your mind--intelligent, mature, dignified journalists are a very, very rare find today.

[Pab Sungenis]

2. I would never make it in today's "journalism."

Real reporters aren't wanted or needed. They'd rather talk about Britney's shaved head and how many men Anna Nicole slept with during a two week period than what really matters.