Over in a small city in Spain, the children of the house head out to walk to a local playground to be with their friends. Their parents do not spend their time fantasizing disaster and worrying about their safety. All is as it should be — children are being children and the adults are doing what they need to do for themselves and family. Now jump across the ocean to a small town in the United States. A child decides that they want to go to the playground to play. They ask their parents but the parents are distracted and do not reply so the child leaves a note. Soon, the parent notices they are gone and reads the note. Immediately, they panic. They call the police telling them of their plight. On the way to the playground, a neighbor sees the child walking along the sidewalk without accompaniment, and they call the police to report neglect and endangerment. The child must remain under the “umbrella” of their parents’ control and fear or the parents may have problems.
Is there a danger? Certainly. Life is uncertain. They may trip on the sidewalk and hit their head. A stranger may drive along and decide that this child should not be permitted sweet dreams and should live through nightmares. A meteorite may fall from the sky, striking the child. They might make it to the playground and, in spite of great efforts to remove all equipment on which they might get hurt, fall off and break an arm.
Is the potential danger different between that city in Spain and that small town in the US? Maybe a bit but not much. Children do the same types of things all over the world. There are good people and bad people in every country and of every background. People talk about the “good old days” of the 1950s or 1960s when everything was safer and they could just walk to school or go to the playground without any cares. Is the potential danger very different between the 1950s and the 2020s?
It is probably a bit more dangerous now than it was — but it’s because of population growth, traffic, climate change, pollution, and such. Children are more likely to develop breathing problems because of increased pollution or have greater health problems because of factory food production or pollutants and contaminants. They have a higher chance of being hit by a car because there are more cars on the road. There are more people with mental problems on the streets because the US decided to save money by getting rid of the public hospitals and sanitariums and release them to roam rather than working with them to improve their situation.
But, at the core, it isn’t much different now from that which it was back “then”. So, why do we have all of these “helicopter” parents — and an attitude from others that demands that they BE “helicopter” parents (or else …).
Perspective..
One of the big changes over the years, especially in the US but somewhat contagious to the rest of the world is that journalism has declined while infotainment has risen greatly. Journalism is concerned with facts (possibly commented upon or even extrapolated from). Infotainment is concerned with presenting information to people such that they are interested and will continue to pay attention in order to sell advertising. The information may be factual or it may be invented. It is possible for infotainment to include factual research that meets journalistic standards — but that is not a requirement.
There have always been media stories (newspapers, television, …) that have been more for public interest than because people really need to know. Sometimes coverage of a remote disaster or a family in trouble can bring people together to be their best selves and provide assistance as they can. But when a terrible thing happens to a child 1500 miles away it is a tragedy — a local, isolated tragedy. One child out of 335 million people. Is your child likely to encounter a similar situation? No. But it is always possible to win a lottery and it is always possible that it could be your child hitting that one out of a 335 million people situation. No one wants their child to be that child.
But in Spain dangers are considered a part of life. In the 1950s USA, dangers were considered to be a part of life. Today, we are often presented with tragedies and problems around the country and world — but, to make it more urgent locally and of greater importance for watchability, it gets lost that this is happening to one out of 335 million (or, globally, 8.05 billion). Danger SEEMS much more likely and, thus, we must hover, we must distrust, we must keep our illusion of control. We have lost perspective. And politicians love fear as they can so easily manipulate people who are angry or fearful.
Perspective can also be minimized.
The opposite can also occur. An unjustifiable shooting of a minority person occurs and it gets reported. However, there are many more that are NOT reported. If the infotainment media decides that people do not want to see this, or their owners do not want people to see this, then it can be de-emphasized. They may declare it to be a solitary event when it is really something that happens much more often. A journalistic approach would make it clear that this is a single reported occurrence from a pool of many actual occurrences. An infotainment approach is concerned with presenting what their viewers want to see — whether it is appropriately shown or not.
Why does the infotainment approach maintain and grow? Money. Many people want to be scared, they want to watch hours-long police chases of people in cars, they want to have scapegoats or feel more fortunate than others. Not all, perhaps not even a majority — but enough to keep the owners of infotainment media away from the factual journalistic approach.
My grandmother used to hand out homemade donuts to trick-or-treaters. My aunt made huge popcorn balls to hand out. In 1968, it was reported — the media inundated with — a story about razor blades found in apples. Was it true? Maybe — but there was never reported health damage from such. But, in 1969 trick-or-treaters would no longer take my grandmother’s donuts. She cried about it. Record profits boomed for candy manufacturers. There are periodically other isolated events forced into people’s awareness about Halloween treats. But it is more of an illusion that the old magician’s tricks at a birthday party. Certainly horribly out of perspective.
People can demand journalistic integrity by not giving money towards those media without it. But will they? It does not look good.
