Schiavo case: Visitor Comments and News Media Reporting

If you go back to the posting on January 24, 2005 titled
Schiavo Case: Beyond Compassion, Beyond Ethics, Beyond Law you will find a number of comments by my visitors. There are some written recently including today but, notwithstanding the earlier date of my posting, the views expressed are timeless and worth reading.

There is another issue that I want to bring up. It is about behavior in this Schiavo case.

As the general public think that the Congress and the President have demonstrated behavior that was inappropriate for their duties, I think that the news media in all their various public expressions have also often behaved inappropriately in the Schiavo case. On TV, was it really necessary to keep bombarding the viewer with the home-video segments presumably selected by the family and possibly showing a biased representation of Terri's activity? How many times did we need to see it? And what was the purpose? And then are the comments of the various stakeholders or their friends. Some of the quoted expressions, though presumably a reflection of the severe emotional distress, are unnecessarily negative and represented, at times, distasteful ad hominem characterizations. Are all these quotes necessary? The Kansas City Star (but also heard on the radio), as an example of unnecessary and possibly overly dramatic description, wrote:

"On Thursday, her sixth full day without food or water, Schiavo, 41, was described by distraught family members as looking like an Auschwitz survivor.."

Why that comparison? Might this be insulting to living Auschwitz survivors reading or hearing this. Why couldn't they paraphrase the family member with the word "poorly". I think you can recall other examples of news media reporting that seemed unnecessary and/or inflammatory. This kind of reporting makes one wonder.. WHY?

Perhaps when this case is finally over, some pathologic examination of the behavior of the politicians and the news media be carried out. Also some consideration of the behavior of the physicians involved. The only parties that looked pretty "clean" was that of the judicial system. What do you think? ..Maurice.