As a former newspaper journalist, I really get annoyed when newspapers print stupid, worthless things to help the American public become even more ignorant. So I've decided to start calling them out in public.
Even worse than printing stupid, worthless stuff is printing stuff that is downright wrong. For instance, in yesterday's paper:
In an age when only 65 percent of the American public can name even one of the three branches of our government, and 10 percent think that Judge Judy serves on the Supreme Court, do we really believe that 62 percent understand (does that mean "know"?) what Cinco de Mayo celebrates?
Well, maybe if the question was posed this way 62 percent could answer correctly:
What does Cinco de Mayo celebrate?
A. Mexico's victory over the French in 1862.
B. The birth of Jesus.
C. The signing of the U.S. Declaration of Independence in 1776.
D. The first meeting of the parliament of Iceland in 930.
(And how interesting that they chose to illustrate a historical holiday with pictures of drinks.)
I'm a high school Spanish teacher and every year on Cinco de Mayo I spend time explaining the Battle of Puebla to my students and what happened and why it's important. I try to erase ignorance student by student. Thanks for posting this!
ReplyDeleteThis is wrong in so many ways. We finally cancelled our local paper because of the dumbing down of the content. Still going through the jitters not having that morning read, but now we have time to read the journals that were piling up on the side table.
ReplyDeleteWe're 'muricans, we don't think about other countries. ;)
ReplyDeleteI love it when you're mad. Get mad more.
ReplyDeleteGee, next you're going to tell me St. Patrick's Day is a religious holiday somewhere and not all about green beer and corned beef & cabbage! :-)
ReplyDeleteBut seriously, playing to the lowest common denominator seems to be the standard these days.