Kids and current events
Carole Simpson, a distinguished and still-capable correspondent marginalized by her network, has been asking kids what they know about their world and has found their responses lacking:

"This is the most frightened I've been in my 40 years in journalism," she says. "I'm finding that current events and geography are not being offered to kids. How can we have a society that sustains itself if young people aren't informed?"

One West Roxbury student offered this explanation:

"To me, the news is not understandable. The war makes no sense to me. I don't agree with it, so I don't want to follow it."

I consider that Carole Simpson has spent decades equipped with the tools of the most persuasive medium yet devised. Is she really satisfied that she used her opportunities wisely? Did she, in her reporting, enhance her audience's understanding of the world, its' geography, economics, politics, and history in an informative and concise way?

Or, more likely, did she fill us in on the daily doings of such illuminati as Kato Kaelin, Joey Buttafuoco, Monica Lewinsky, Tonya Harding et alia, because that's what her producers and assignment editors presumed we the public want to hear? I know she turned the occasional important, difficult story, yet she did her share of the easy and sensational. Enough that she can't easily escape culpability in the problem she most eagerly identifies.

What's worse, she appears to hold the educational system largely accountable for this disconnect. She's sitting on her years of making a comfortable living and blaming the $40,000 per year public school teacher. How arrogant. She had an audience of millions every time she went on the air; the most overworked teachers might have 40 kids in their class, at most.

I'd hope Carole Simpson would call her newsroom and inform her former colleagues of her "frightening" discoveries. More Americans get their news from ABC News than from any other source! If the news they "got" was, say, more relevant and understandable, less showy and sensationalized, contained a bit more analysis and explanation, and inspired viewers to dig a little deeper for themselves, it might not be too late for things to change. 10:44:46 AM    comment []trackback []