Twisted Truths

This morning (Thursday, June 11, 2015) I saw a «viral video» on «Right This Minute» («The Viral Video TV Show») that showed two women fighting in a grocery store. In the video you could see a young boy (5 or 6 years old) moving around the outskirts of the fight, apparently the child of one of the women. In the version I saw this morning it seemed that the producers wanted to emphasize the presence of an innocent child forced to witness the violence. So, unbeknownst to me this morning they edited out parts of the video where the boy actually got involved in the fight (by hitting one of the women with a shampoo bottle, and even kicking her in the head while she was held down by his mother). They even had one of the female commenters say ever so empathetically, «Oh my word! And they're fighting like that in front of that poor child!» (or something similar).

I found out about the cut out parts when I saw the same video on «Inside Edition» just this evening. It showed the boy getting involved in the fight, as well as the mother telling her son to punch the other woman in the face while she held her down. It seems that «Inside Edition» had a different «slant» that they wanted to emphasize; that the mother was being a terrible mom for encouraging her son to violence. But, at least they spoke to the mother and got her side of the story (she claimed she was trying to teach her son to «not back down», and personally, I side with her).

The important lesson in all this? It is the oldest lesson of mass media, and one that is still often never properly learned: Don't believe what you see (or are told to see) on T.V. (or in the press, or on the Web, etc...). You'd think we'd know that by now, but a-parently not! ツ

[J.D. June 11, 2015]