The top news story this month has been the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. The morning news has been 90% royal wedding, 5% weather, and 5% everything else this week and it is driving me nuts. Does anyone really care about the trees that have been brought in to make it feel like the English countryside? Who cares what Kate Middleton’s dress looks like. I don’t care that she was talking to some lady outside of Prince William’s residence this morning. While the rags to riches side of the story is a nice fairy tale kind of story, is every detail of the wedding truly news worthy?
I feel like the national news has become more like the tabloids over the past month. If I wanted to follow this celebrity wedding that closely, I’d watch something like TMZ or pick up a National Inquirer. In my opinion, the mainstream news media is trying to tell the people what they should care about. We should care more about a celebrity wedding (that’s really all it is) more than the hundreds who died in the tornadoes this week. We should care more about that tragedy than the single mother who was found dead less than a mile away from where her baby was found sleeping in her car. We should care more about that story than the troops who are still fighting overseas and the still fragile state of our economy. Both of those stories have gotten little to no coverage in national news to allow for the hours of coverage on every minuscule detail of the royal wedding.
Then there are the amazing things that are happening that never seem to make the news. I’m sure countless people open their hearts to Christ this past weekend. Chicago is paying cab companies to go green. In the wake of tragedy like the tornadoes in the south, the story is bigger than a long road of rebuilding. There are churches working hard to provide relief to their communities that were hit hard with crazy weather this week. Perfect strangers come in droves to help rebuild homes and towns. Yes, it’s a long road to recover, but it’s more than the government providing funding and man power. It’s common people locking hands and helping one another.
I think it’s those stories that should have the majority of news time and stories like the royal wedding should be brief mentions.