Tuesday, December 13, 2011

The Duggars.........Newsworthy? Still? Or EVER?

The Duggars miscarried the baby which would have been their 20th child last week.   One article or another on their grief and how they are coping with it has been in the news every single day since then.   Do you think that's newsworthy other than to her family?   Are they being used by the media for filling ad space?  Are they using the media for publicity for some reason?  As sad as it is, they have 19 healthy children........for which they have so much to be grateful.  Does having children already lessen the pain of a miscarriage? No.........but, to see articles on various aspects of their grief for a week afterward....isn't that unusual?  Nobody wants to judge a family in grief, and their grief is as big and appropriate to them as it feels.   I guess I wonder at the fact that it's still being covered even tonight.   What do you think?
z

14 comments:

Always On Watch said...

It's not a newsworthy story, IMO.

We get a lot of such stories these days. Diversions and digressions.

Silverfiddle said...

I think national news outlets have been giving us fluff and filler for over 20 years now. Every time a mud hut collapses in North Crapistan we hear about it.

Someone is carjacked in Miami, we hear about it. A principle in some small city calls the cops because a boy kissed a girl in gym class...

All this stuff has always gone on, but unless it affected us where we live, nobody pestered us with the information. Now, national news is a torrent of useless information designed to keep us on edge and tuned in to the real show: the commercials propagandizing us.

With apologies to Timothy Leary...

Turn off, Tune out, and Pick Up a Hobby.

It's too much useless information, and it just overloads us.

Chakam Conservative said...

I'm totally ignorant of this show and this family.

Still, I do empathize with them in their latest miscarriage. A difficult time, indeed, but one that also can be endured with faith and surrender.

As to the newsworthiness of the Duggar family and this obviously staged "reality show", I could not say. Perhaps it is just another example of a mentally-bankrupt society being spoon-fed nonsense by a corporate network.

Sorry, Z. I have no concrete opinions here. But you opened the door for opinions, and here is mine. Thanks for reading!

Opus #6 said...

The media need to create minor celebrities so that they can report on them, and then we all can be depended upon to look. I'll admit, I clicked on more than one news story, giving hits to the news organizations who carried the story.

One thing I learned this week that I did not know before is that the Duggars suffered a miscarriage early on in their marriage while she was on birth control. The trauma of that loss led them to eschew birth control for the rest of their days. I predict they will not now begin birth control. They believe their family size and condition is up to The Lord.

sue hanes said...

Z - I see this morning that there is going to be a Memorial Service.


I can hardly wrap my mind around this.


But I don't think it is the fault of the Media this time.

I believe that the Duggars have used the Media - and viewers - to support this obsession that they have - to bring as many children into the World as they can - and they have the nerve to bring God into it.


Let them handle this in a private way.

Z said...

Opus, that's interesting about the early days of their marriage and their decision.
Sometimes, I purposefully don't click on my internet homepage site's names because as much as I might want to know what that person's up to, I don't want to contribute to the media's thinking I care and propagating more of this stuff!

Sue, I was on moderation but some people got through and others didn't. That's a first. VERY weird. I deleted your repetitions.
I guess you hadn't noticed, or maybe the words didn't show up for you because of the problem with my site.
I got to wondering if the Duggers didn't WANT to handle this privately but the media got in their faces. Chakam reminds me that they had or do have a reality show.

the whole thing's weird.

Lisa said...

I don't think I ever saw more than 30 seconds of that show. The only thing I watch that is remotely reality is American Idol.
What do I think? I think it is totally insane to abuse your body like that putting babies at risk unnecessarily,while weakening the gene pool.
Women are not designed to be baby factories.
Maybe that woman with the 15 kids living in the hotel room can get a show too. Why not?

Z said...

AOW; it's astonishing to me that really MAJOR news stories are right there with the same headlines as this very personal event we shouldn't have even had to hear about.

Silverfiddle...it's about the commercials/ads...
even car chases 3 miles from MY house are broadcast on national cable news; even I don't care about that!
Yes, 'turn off, tune out...' I find myself watching a lot more old reruns of EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND or reading than I have in the past. I'm just WORN OUT from political bickering, useless and frivolous stories (but I digress..>!).......

I've done whole posts on this subject and I stand by it; we are drowning in useless, negative, troubling news that we don't need to hear. It's definitely SENSORY OVERLOAD.

Chakam, I didn't know they had a reality show until..maybe that's why this is a 'news story'....you say "Perhaps it is just another example of a mentally-bankrupt society being spoon-fed nonsense by a corporate network."

exactly right.

Opus, if they believe that, I wish they'd keep it to themselves, right? :-)

Ticker said...

It is a non-story used by the media to distract people from the real problems in this country. It is also a way of filling up a slot either in print or in air time.

Grief is a private matter, not one to be celeb
rated or spread about in the media.

Now whether the Duggers wanted this or not is unknown to me.
If they wish to make a show of their grief then they need to do some real soul searching.

If it is a media hype thing, then the media needs to find something else to report and allow the family to deal with their grief privately.
I am sure they could find a story of some "movie star" getting thrown off a plane or stealing jewelry.

sue hanes said...

Z - I didn't notice that you were on moderation.


Thanks for deleting my repetitous comments.

BB-Idaho said...

What do I think?
I think I'm glad they had no
'reality TV' back in 1765:
"The highest officially recorded number of children born to one mother is 69, to the first wife of Feodor Vassilyev (1707-1782) of Shuya, Russia. Between 1725 and 1765, in a total of 27 confinements, she gave birth to 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets, and four sets of quadruplets. 67 of them survived infancy."

Chakam Conservative said...

@Lisa,

"Women are not designed to be baby factories."

Really? Are you sure? I mean, women have all the appropriate plumbing to do so. Before we had such advancements in medicine, families were by virtue of necessity larger than what we have today. Obviously only the women could bring that about.

As to baby-making, I have two thoughts: the more the better, and the attempts are always fun and awesome!

Z said...

BB, that's amazing! I have a friend who's grandmother to 3 sets of twins....no other grandkids, imagine?

Ticker, talk about Alec Baldwin; he did something SO SO low on SNL that it even stunned me. Going on the show mimic'ing the pilot and absolving Baldwin "It was all American's fault"...
the crowd roaring.
The man is a CREEP...I sat across the aisle from him on Delta flying from LA to Orlando and he was RUDE and SURLY. YUCK.
But the left loves this! The worse the behavior, the more we absolve and laugh! How DISGUSTING.
end of rant :-)

Chakam..I think Lisa means 'factory' like in MASS PRODUCTION. Of course we women are the only producers of children! BUt.... you have to admit, 20 is a LOT !!

Pris said...

I don't think one day of reporting this would hurt anything. A week is a bit much IMO.

I wasn't aware they had a reality show. Only once did I see a program about this family.

I don't knock them at all. This family is unusual. My feeling is, that as long as the taxpayers are not supporting them, I find no criticism in their having all these children.

They seem to be a happy bunch, so who am I find fault?