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Recently a Democratic Virginia legislator stated that he will leave public office because he has been having extramarital relations.
Not so long ago, a Republican Virginia legislator during the course of a campaign was falsely accused of sexual assault, and certain Virginia blogs were all too quick to convict him and spread the unverifiable and salacious details.
It was interesting to see how the two situations were portrayed on the left-leaning blogs of our state.
Needless to say, these bloggers expressed sympathy and disappointment over the resignation of their progressive champion – not moral outrage over how this man treated his wife and family. And, in the other case, they of course had no trouble excoriating the Republican.
Regardless, are either of these situations really any of our business – no matter what the political situation?
A quick tour of the media – whether it’s online or television, will reveal that we are a culture possessed with schadenfreude.
In this era of 24/7 media scrutiny, it seems we can’t get enough of putting human beings under a microscope – from celebrities to politicians – and being critical of their every move – or revel in their misfortune.
But is splash and trash journalism really an effective means of passing information or advocating for a cause?
Frankly, I see it as little more than public voyeurism.
Yes – Bearing Drift has been guilty of this in the past too…but there comes a time when you have to wonder if we as media have collectively gone too far.
I know that if it bleeds, it leads – that’s the old axiom regarding journalism. But it is also a cop-out – and as media, we don’t have to be over-the-top. There are some things that we really don’t have to report. We don’t have to score points on the personal adversity of our political opponents.
Much of what we see today is sleaze – and bloggers and other media are only catering to these base desires, or their personal ambition of winning-at-all-costs.
But what does it say about us – the reader or the partisan – in how quickly we revel in other people’s misfortune – and what does it say about our future?
Bearing Drift consciously decided not to write about this recent incident regarding the Democrat. It’s not our business. Sure, we hope a conservative will replace him, but we also pray for his wife and family, and hope that forgiveness and reconciliation is possible. But, again, it’s not our business. And we’re not going to make it our business.
If such indiscretions impact public policy, well, then maybe we’ll make it our business, but certainly it’s not the case here.
Our editorial opinion is that viewing people through a microscope is not only morally inept, but is one step closer to Orwell’s nightmarish vision in “1984”.
If we, as a society, collectively condition ourselves to the notion that putting human beings on parade is acceptable, What’s next?
How far away are we then from GPS devices that are used to tax our vehicles, cell phones that track our movements to pay for tolls, the state looking at our medical records and deciding what kind of health care we should receive?
Hey, wait a second….
