They’ve done it again. In the same week, the media has turned a lying thief into a hero, while taking a hero and turning him into the scum of the earth.
First, there’s the wife of one of our favorite hucksters, Tammy Faye Bakker. Anyone else remember way back when her husband Jim told the world that if they didn’t empty their wallets into his pockets that the Lord would take him? Any sane person would call the guy a liar and a cheat, but no, his drooling sheep.. sorry, flock… opened their hearts and their checkbooks, and sent this guy more money than they spend in a month to feed their own families. The guy eventually got arrested, tried, and sent to jail for scamming people out of millions, but his butt-ugly wife managed to escape fairly unscathed. She was allowed to keep the money while her beloved (and eventually divorced) hubby took the rap in jail.
So now the media wants us all to praise and worship her because she is dying of cancer. And people are posting things like “Oh, you poor dear, God bless you! My mother died of cancer… blah blah… gotta make this about me somehow… ” Oh puhleeze. This woman ranks high on the top ten list of smarmiest evilest bitches to ever walk this Earth, but we’re all supposed to develop amnesia because the media wants us to. I say she is getting what she deserves. If it were anyone else, that might be heartless, but considering what she did, I say it’s poetic justice. She helped Jim pass on the lie that if he didn’t get money God would kill him (and really, what kinda merciless God did he believe in?), okay so it took a couple years but God finally got around to the payback.
And then there’s the Michael Vick scandal. The guy was a football hero last week, but this week he’s Public Enemy Number 1. He’s been accused of running a dog fighting ring, his endorsements are dropping faster than dog drool, and there is one senator who wants the guy executed. Message boards and news stories all over the web are all talking about how terrible it is that this guy is endangering the lives of innocent dogs.
Excuse me, I must have missed this… when was he convicted? Oh, sure, what he is accused of is certainly horrific, and if it’s true he should be fined and jailed, but when did a court declare him guilty?
Right. They didn’t.
Once again, the media has completely circumvented the court process and decided that he is already guilty as charged. Stories are heavily slanted towards that “fact,” and anyone reading it instantly draws the conclusion that the media wants them to draw – the man has already been tried and convicted, and is therefore fair game for our hatred. What ever happened to innocent until proven guilty? Seems like ever since the OJ trial, if you’re famous enough, or if the crime is vile enough, you’re guilty until proven otherwise. Soon everyone from the New York Times to Jay Leno is reporting about how said suspect is guilty as charged. They have to be – America loves a scandal, thus all articles must be written as if the worst has already happened. (And later if it is proven that the person IS innocent, the damage has already been done. The person is marked for life as the guilty guy who got off easy because, well, the media said he was guilty so why is he not in jail?) Is anyone really going to read a newspaper that proudly proclaims “Nothing new to report about the Vick case!” Of course not. The newspaper is instead going to announce his guilt, even if such “reporting” borders on flat out lies, just to get people to read. Truth may be stranger than fiction, but it apparently isn’t as interesting.
Personally, I don’t know anything at all about the guy. I don’t follow sports, nor do I have any sacred cows among the world of celebrities. If they do something stupid, they deserve to pay for it just like any other person, and we should not be celebrating their stupidity. We already know there is a different set of rules for the rich and famous, and if you know the right people you can get away with murder. The media is just making it worse by taking it upon themselves to decide what is and is not true, and as far as I am concerned, they are no longer reliable for reporting the news. They are too busy creating the news to boost their ratings to actually report anything.