Unfortunately I didn’t have power from Wednesday afternoon til late Thursday, so this is going up a bit late.
I’m not one to use the Internet as a soap stand, but this past week has been a particularly frustrating and irritating one. I am well aware of the freedom of the press and of speech, but I am sick and tired of the media’s blatant lack of sensitivity concerning the tragic passing of John Travolta and Kelly Preston’s son Jett.
The poor 16 year old boy who suffered from Kawasaki syndrome and is speculated to have been autistic was barely cold when the ruthless cutthroats in both television and newspaper were already rummaging through the facts to sensationalize the tragedy. Scientology, the religion to which both Preston and Travolta practice, has long since been regarded as almost a cult, and while the Travoltas are grieving over the devastating loss of their beloved son the media has been nothing short of malicious, insisting that the religion is to blame for the boy’s death.
Whatever happened to a sense of moral decency and decorum? As soon as it was reported that Jett passed away the media vultures saw this as time for a feast, not requiring evidence. All of this immediately fueled wild speculation that Scientology is to blame and that his parents are responsible, without proof or reason to believe so.
Of course the medical examiners and police detectives should pursue every avenue of investigation, but I can’t help but feel horrible for the poor family that has to dodge these rumors whilst grieving.
It’s a sad testament to the morality in our society that before the toxicology report or autopsy was even released the hounds were already out for blood. These parents just lost their child and there is no proof whatsoever of wrongdoing or neglect, in the article it’s reported that Jett was on Depakote for years, shooting down the pervasive rumor that the parents must not have medicated their seizure prone son.
No one knows exactly what happened to the late Jett Travolta, and while I am all for reporting the facts I think it is shameful how unscrupulous the media is acting. They should wait until the facts are in before printing devastating and baseless accusations. The poor people just lost their son, and instead of receiving the benefit of the doubt they were painted as brainwashed villains. This article is not guilty of this, it’s simply informative but from the news coverage this story has received it’s sickening the insensitivity that has been allocated to this misfortune.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/02/obit.jett.travolta/index.html
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3 comments:
Hey,
I absolutely 100% agree. When I read a headline announcing Jett Travolta's death I was saddened and noticing how young he was I clicked the link to see how it was he had died. Instead, what I found was exactly what you reported, horrible (and sometimes baseless) accusations that shocked me with their lack of sympathy. In fact, hardly any of the article that I read was devoted to the actual person it was supposedly mourning.
And everytime I go on news websites it's the same. I keep encountering these heartless and sensationalized articles and it truly makes me feel even more sad. Really, this isn't a matter to be making money off of.
I feel that the media was overbearing in this event: the Travolta family is entitled to a period of grieving privately and I feel that reporters were so desperate to get a story out of this that they disregarded the effect their articles would have on the family. Also, they were quick to jump to conclusions about the causes of death, referring to the autism and Kawasaki syndrome, yet the actual cause of death still remains unknown.
Although the public is entitled to know the facts about the situation, it would be better if the media gave the family some alone time first, before getting into the heavy details of the event.
Since when has the media ever been sympathetic to anyone? Honestly, the stereotype of vulture journalists doesn't come from nowhere -these people have jobs, and sadly a part of that job is to keep people reading their articles. It makes sense that they would bring scientology into this, because scientology is still something very new and mysterious to the general public.
It doesn't make sense in that it has anything to do with Jett's passing, though. All I'd like to point out is that the media's treatment of this news story is just one of many, many cases. Further, if Jett Travolta and his family were Christian or Jewish or some other more common religion to the United States, then there would most likely be some other part of the story coming out of the woodworks, some other rumor spreading based on basically nothing. Sadly, that's what keeps these stories popular - they have to be out of the ordinary or extraordinary, and if that means lying or stretching the truth, some journalists will absolutely do that.
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