That’s the question posed to me more than once from Las Vegas news viewers this week.
In case you haven’t heard, two Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Officers were shot point-blank as they sat eating lunch around noon last Sunday. The shooters left THAT scene, went to the nearby Wal-Mart…killed a shopper there, then died in the back of the store (either by suicide pact or from police action). Five people dead in a matter of an hour.
Wednesday someone else wounded a cop in nearby Henderson, NV, and other officers shot him dead.
Thursday, a distraught and depressed mother tossed her 2-yr-old and her 6-month old out the window of a 2-story home, and then jumped out of the window herself.
Those were the news “low-lights” in a week that seemed off-the-charts in the number of incidents of people being inhuman to one another. Now we’re in full-on “funeral coverage” mode at the TV station… and we should be. Every one of those stories is a heart-breaker.
None of this has anything to do with voice-acting, of course, but everything to do with why news viewers would ask: “What’s going on out there…?”
I don’t have an answers, and I refuse to be political in laying blame, but just look at this graphic:
The graphic claims there have been 74 school shootings since the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting. The data comes from a source with a distinct anti-gun agenda, and there are plenty of serious challenges to the efficacy of the study.
But let’s just say HALF that number is correct…let’s say 37 school shootings have happened since Sandy Hook.
Crazy!
I keep coming back to that study done long ago about too many rats in a cage, and they begin to turn on one another.
And don’t even…. don’t even say it’s Las Vegas that’s a poster child for this kind of behavior…it’s no better nor worse than any other city.
So what’s going on out there? I’ll hazard a guess. We’re all too wrapped up in self, money, things, and status rather than service to others. I’m certainly guilty.
Of course, it’s not that simple, and to go further would put me on one side or the other of the political spectrum. But speaking as fatigued newsperson at the end of a terrible week… speaking as an observer of the “news”… I must say that if what’s good about the human race doesn’t start being more pro-active, then what’s ugly about humankind will continue to dominate the headlines.
[off my soapbox, now…have a great weekend!]
CourVO
