Wednesday 8 January 2020

Time Magazine Story

Time magazine, which I really haven't purchased or read through much over the past twenty years (probably fewer than three times....mostly via airline flights where it was reading material)....has gotten itself into a bit of amusement today.

Somehow, the magazine decided that they really needed to go and explain significance of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani's killing....in kid-talk. 

Yes, it was an entire article designed for parents....to sit down and talk over the incident with their 8-year old to 12-year old kid.

Yes, it was designed in some way to be a guide.

The first problem to this is that they (the Time staff) assume that young kids watch the news.  Out of a hundred 10-year old kids....I might go and suggest that twenty percent might watch some news (more so for local news than national news), and the rest might catch their news via social media, or concentrate more on Hollywood or Kanye West-type news.

Then you assume that the kid asks dad right away....where is Iran, and dad is at a loss to find it on a map. 

Then you come to the issue of good guy versus bad guy.  Dad will sit there for a minute, then explain it's like Breaking Bad....where Walter White was really both a good guy and bad guy.  The kid will ask....isn't this like wrestling....where a bad guy turns good guy, and eventually reverts back to bad guy status?  Dad will suggest it's more like the Iron Sheik of the 1980s/1990s.  Junior will come back and ask if the 'Foreign Legion' (Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff) were mostly bad guys, and dad will study that for a minute....to respond 'yes'.   But he'll add....they were such good bad-guys. 

Finally, you come to the question...will the kid take the position of President Trump?  That's probably what worries these Time magazine journalists the most. 

This brings me to the final bit of pondering....is it possible that virtually all news is designed for 10-year old kids, and we adults are treated in the same way?