I punish myself every day at 6:00 p.m. by watching the news. I don’t know why I do this. Maybe it’s because I want to stay informed, which is what I like to think or maybe it’s because I am bored, which is probably more closer to the truth. I really don’t know. Anyway, I do it and I have a question.
Why is it that when they do a particular story, they feel the need to show some video along with it? For instance, if there is story about a new drug or a drug company, you can be sure they will show stock footage of a pharmacist counting pills before filling a prescription, and he’s usually using that scraper thing to do it instead of using his fingers which is probably what I would do.
A story on the so-called obesity epidemic? Guaranteed that there will footage of overweight people shot from the neck down so we can’t identify them. Even though we don’t see their faces, when those people see themselves on the screen, they will always certainly know it’s them. They will always be thinking "Why didn't anybody tell me my ass was so big?!"
The one image that topped them all though, was on the news last night.
The story was about this vaccine, whose name I can’t remember, that supposedly is a prevention against cervical cancer. It opened by showing a young lady in a doctor’s waiting room, discussing why she was getting it. There is a big history of cervical cancer in her family and she figures, better safe than sorry. Okay, so far, so good.
The news reader continues the story and next shot is of this same young lady in stirrups, her legs pointed up to the sky with a doctor peering between her legs!
All you could see was a side view of her. The doctor was looking so far down that you couldn’t see his head! What the hell was he doing, looking for gold? Maybe he was in the process of falling over? Or maybe he was just plain embarrassed and wanted to hide his face. I’ll be damned if I know!
But you know what? That was enough! Did I really have to see this most personal of examinations just so I would have something to look at while hearing the story? Do they really think our attention spans are that short?
Are they that afraid I might fall asleep during the story if there was just a talking head instead of this image? And will they use this footage every time they do a story about this vaccine? God only knows and he ain't talking.
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