{"id":6303,"date":"2014-08-23T02:13:42","date_gmt":"2014-08-23T02:13:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2014\/08\/23\/tired-of-the-ferguson-story\/"},"modified":"2014-08-23T02:13:42","modified_gmt":"2014-08-23T02:13:42","slug":"tired-of-the-ferguson-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=6303","title":{"rendered":"Tired of the Ferguson story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

Let’s discuss this one a little.<\/p>\n

OK, I’ll start. I am tired of the Ferguson, Mo., story. Does anyone else out there share that thought?<\/p>\n

We know many of the facts already. A young African-American man, Michael Brown, was shot to death by a white police officer in the St. Louis suburb. Residents protested. The protests got violent. The Ferguson police responded with a very heavy hand. The state police took over. The governor declared a curfew and called out the National Guard to keep the peace.<\/p>\n

The cable news networks have been all over this story. They’re covering it like a blanket. 24\/7, or so it seems.<\/p>\n

I’m weary of it.<\/p>\n

The Ferguson story, I think, gets to the heart of what sometimes ails TV journalism. Reporters get fixated on stories and then beat them into the ground.<\/p>\n

I grew tired of the Trayvon Martin story, which had a similar context. I grew sick and tired of the Natalie Holloway story — remember her? She was the Alabama teenager who disappeared in Aruba. The networks were all over that one for seemingly forever. I got sick of the Malaysia Airlines jetliner disappearance story. CNN was the worst, reporting “breaking news” when none existed. One news anchor asked someone if it was possible if the plane flew into a black hole; he was then reminded by the guest that a black hole would swallow the entire solar system.<\/p>\n

What am I missing in this Ferguson story?<\/p>\n

It’s not that that my heart isn’t broken over the death of the teenager. Or that the police made a mess of their response to the protests. Or that the state police captain who’s taken charge of things hasn’t acted with nobility and courage. I get all of that. I’d like answers to questions surrounding the militarization of the police department and whether minorities are being targeted unfairly by police. How about the Ferguson political structure? It needs to change. A majority black community needs more African-Americans in positions of authority.<\/p>\n

I just cannot watch it at length any longer. I’ve grown tired of the media saturation, just as I tired of one cable network’s obsession with the Benghazi tragedy in Libya and its coverage of the IRS non-scandal.<\/p>\n

Is there something wrong with me?<\/p>\n

I’m all ears.<\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let’s discuss this one a little. OK, I’ll start. I am tired of the Ferguson, Mo., story. Does anyone else out there share that thought? We know many of the facts already. A young African-American man, Michael Brown, was shot to death by a white police officer in the St. Louis suburb. Residents protested. The … Continue reading Tired of the Ferguson story<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[589,657,1043,1719,1788,2866,2946,3013,3019,3184,4898],"class_list":["post-6303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-benghazi","tag-black-hole","tag-cnn","tag-ferguson-mo","tag-fox-news","tag-malaysia-airlines","tag-mass-media","tag-mh-370","tag-michael-brown","tag-natalie-holloway","tag-trayvon-martin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6303\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}