Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Dear Diane Sawyer,

I don't watch the news nearly as much as I should. At 24 years old, I should be way more aware of worldly happenings. I realize this and am very quick to admit to my current event deficiency. However, I'm not 100% sure watching the news every night would make me anymore up to snuff on the happenings of the world, which is concerning.

I often watch World News with you, Ms. Sawyer, following my local 6:30 news. Granted, it's usually background noise while I cook dinner check Facebook. Either way, I give you a really serious chance to enrich my mind, Diane. And frankly, not much is happening.


This could be my inability to hear anything Obama says. And no, that's not a direct slam on Obama. I have a really bad habit of instantly tuning out all politicians. As soon as they start talking, I hear Charlie Brown's teacher, no matter how hard I try not to. Seriously...during political debates I turn off all distractions and literally stare at the TV, yet nothing sinks in.


So all your segments on this whole government shutdown thing are completely wasted on me. I did manage to pay attention to the mention of the fact that Mr. President actually made a phone call the other day to someone important, who I assume he hasn't been speaking to recently. I can't be certain though.

Because shortly after discussing what was actually happening in our country, you switched over to Malala, the 15-year-old Pakistani girl who's been shot by the Taliban for standing up for her beliefs. Apparently she wrote a book. And I by no means am trying to be disrespectful or insensitive, because it's an amazing story, really. She's an amazing girl and I cried when you first told us about her......over a month ago. I've got one word for you, Diane, redundant. Surely they taught you that word in journalism school.

Pointless is a word they should have taught you too. Because the next stories were just that. Pointless.

First I caught a snippet of outraged parents, complaining because laundry detergent now looks like candy and apparently all the piggy, unsupervised children in America are consuming said laundry detergent pods and nearly dieing.


I wonder, Mrs. Sawyer, why did you choose to report about candy-looking laundry detergent instead of the real issue at hand....parents who leave laundry detergent in reach of their 18-month-old children. I mean, I know shit happens, but why aren't parents watching their kids? Better yet, why aren't parents teaching their kids not to put everything they find laying around in their mouth? These are the hard-hitting questions I'd like answers to, Diane.

The last story of the night was possibly the best. It was about "Occasional Wives/Husbands". Apparently, some genius out there has made a fortune by stepping in and picking up the pieces left behind by all the lazy spouses in the world. Tired of your husband not painting the guest room? No worries, you can now hire an "Occasional Husband" to do it for you, at only $25 an hour. Thanks to you, Diane Sawyer, I now know this valuable piece of information. If it weren't for you getting straight to the facts about renting a spouse I'd either a) still be staring at an unpainted guest room or b) gotten off my lazy ass and done it myself (and seriously, were's the good in that?)

I know I need to watch the news more and I know I need to be more up to date with important events happening in our world. Checking Twitter every 5 seconds isn't going to cut it in the grown up world. However, Diane, I'm concerned. Because I'm not quite sure catching up with you every night is going to cut it either. Because if laundry detergent disputes and rental spouses is what's going on in the grown up world, I'll probably just choose to opt out of the whole thing.



Sincerely,

Is this really what it's like to be an informed adult?






1 comment:

  1. I completely agree about the way stories are presented on the news (for example...the laundry detergent). It's not that all of the news stories are bad or wrong, but they don't always take the position of look at it the way they should. For some reason, in the NW there have been an abundance of children falling out of 2nd story windows in the last year. That's all they normally tell you. Well, why aren't there screens in those windows, or if there are why can't they develop a screen that a CHILD can't push out? Better yet . . . why was the child left alone in a room with an open window??

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