Friday, August 5, 2011

Front Page of CNN.com: A Rant

I read CNN a lot. For all its leans and biases, it's still pretty fair from what I can see. (I suppose FOX is fair for other people, but I'm not here to talk about media bias.) I wanted to comment on something that generally made me angry. An article on the front page of CNN.COM drew out my claws in a way that made me uneasy. The article is HERE. It's a short rant with facts and generalizations talking about how much of a failure my generation already is (this before we've had a chance to try).

I'll tell you briefly why this bothers me. I was going to rail against this article (in a fashion that would only serve to prove this mans point further) but it's so plainly and unabashedly mean-spirited that I simply won't give it the luxury of going over each point. It felt like a racist manifesto.

"Speaking broadly, millennials are tech-savvy, highly educated and have incredibly high self-esteem even if they haven't done much to deserve it. (To be sure, not every millennial is college educated and exhibits all these traits; we're speaking broadly.)"

Imagine for a second that this is about a race of people. And you say:

'Speaking broadly [Blanks] are [Quality which appears positive but is turned negative later in the piece #1] [Quality #2] and [Quality which you then spin as a condescending remark]. But not all [blanks] are like that, we're speaking broadly.'

The way it's delivered is in such a way that my having an issue with it is fuel to the fire. "There's another hotheaded, self entitled [Blank] that can't take criticism."

We're the next generation, we will hold jobs and we will make decisions. Please don't talk to your fellow "Non-Milleneals" like my generation can simply be turned away (or "re-booted" for that matter). Don't talk like this problem world we've fallen into is somehow just too hard for us. Don't treat me as if I can't hear you up at the grown up table.

1 comment:

Julio Figueroa said...

I recall coming upon the same article not too long ago. Ruben Navarrette seems to me like a patriotic asshole, and a grade A one I'll add. The man's writings are self evident of his conservative roots. Only last month he wrote this.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/07/21/navarrette.soccer/index.html?hpt=hp_c2
He calls it "misplaced[loyalties]"