Of Cabbages and Kings

A misplaced grudge has no place in the coverage of Arizona tragedy

By LUELLA DOW

Contributor

I write this on a Wednesday morning. It will be more than a week until you read it. I hope by that time I won't simply shrug my shoulders and say, “Oh, well.” This is a case of “Somebody ought to do something.”

This is the day I turned to my TV and heard on a national morning news show a “sweet young thing” ask a despicable question. She said to Bill Hileman, husband of Susan Hileman who brought young Christina Taylor Green to see Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords speak in Tucson, Arizona, “Do you think the Greens will hold a grudge?”

Mr. Hileman spoke with quiet dignity and ignored the question. He explained that the Hilemans and Green families were neighbors, good friends, and he and his wife were very much attached to the little girl. Did that “sweet young thing” not understand that the man's wife was also a victim and that they loved the child as if she were their granddaughter?

What if Susan Hileman had died? Would the “sweet young thing” then haul the Greens before the world and ask them if Hileman held a grudge against them because his wife was shot while taking their daughter to see representative Giffords?

When I see a grieving family lined up before the camera, so closely we can see a tear fall, and the reporter grills them with questions, I have often thought, “Why don't they just leave those people alone?” Are we, as a nation, so hungry for sensation, so eager for the sight of blood, we must see on camera hearts wrenched open in grief?

When does news turn to prying? Whatever happened to decency? Has privacy been stricken from our vocabulary?

Of course, the national media, right on cue, has a habit of trying to blame somebody else's chance remarks for goading the perpetrator of the crime into doing his awful deed.

Obviously this one was a danger to himself and society and didn't need any outside help.

This morning I wanted to throw my shoe at the television when the “sweet young thing” with the smug face asked that asinine question about a grudge.

There are others, some not so sweet or young, with a drop of venom on their tongues who prod and poke, deliberately trying to raise the interviewee's ire. In that case they're usually after someone of the opposite political persuasion.

Now then, back to “Somebody ought to do something.” There are some 300 million of us in this United States. Surely a few of us ought to be brave enough to tell our national media we want news, not a broken heart pried open for all to see. And as for the politicians, well, they're sort of on their own.

Luella Dow is a Cheney-area author who can be reached at [email protected].