(Edit: Apparently, the source for the picture is gone. It's a picture of Kaitlyn Jenner with a caption asking people to "like" if they agree that the media should be talking about things that matter and not this national freak show.)
Hmm.
I have two seemingly completely different takes on this one.
My first reaction is to hate it. My philosophy on life is that if you obsess over the opportunity to judge people for how they want to live their lives, you're pretty much a dick. If I met the human formerly known as Bruce Jenner, now Caitlyn Jenner, I would tell her "good for you. Live your life." No judgment from me. I don't have the slightest shred of understanding as to how someone could be a man for 65 years and feel he's a woman and then make that change, but I'm bright enough to realize it's not FOR me to understand. Whether or not I understand it isn't the freaking point. It's not my life.
But while I certainly disapprove of the "freak show" comment, I do sympathize with the sentiment that there's more important stories to worry about. Why is this member of the Kardashian clan, the single-most overexposed, self-promoting non-achieving group of all time on my TV every second? He's not the first person to ever transition like this, and he's not the only one currently doing it. (Yes, I'm using "he" in this case because "he" was a man when the decision was made. Suck it up, PC vandals.)
I'm a little worked up over this because I have a big pet peeve when it comes to news coverage. I've been told that stories about this have shown up on the nightly network news. (I haven't seen them myself; I've been working crazy hours lately.) And that sucks. Royally. Terribly. I don't give a shit how interesting you find the Caitlyn phenomenon -- it's not news.
The nightly news is where the overwhelming majority of Americans that watch TV news get it from. NBC, ABC, CBS at 6:30. And those shows last about 22 minutes after commercials. Are you telling me there isn't enough "news" to fill 22 minutes without resorting to sensationalism? The planet's melting, we need to do something with immigration, ISIS is beheading people -- I'm sorry if you think that Caitlyn Jenner is somehow on a par with that, because it's not. Welcome to ShortBus.
You know who SHOULD be covering Caitlyn Jenner? The FM radio morning DJ's. Access Hollywood. Extra. Entertainment Tonight. The Today Show. Good Morning America. The View. The Talk. Hell, even the one-hour shows on the 24-hour news networks that have discussion on them are better. Leave the nightly news for actual news.
This country is the most entertained and, at times, the least informed. I don't think it's asking too much that people who cover news should be able to distinguish between the two types of stories.
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