Saturday, March 20, 2010

Should the Media Feed the Angry Teens' Egos?


A BRITISH TEENAGER followed a politician doing a tour of the youth's town back in 2007. With the media filming video and shooting still images, the youth made gun gestures while walking behind the politician.

The BBC tracked down the teenager and his friends. The youths are obviously showing off for the media during the interview, and the BBC blurred out the faces of the other youths.

Should the media have blurred out the faces? Should the media have shown these kids at all? Isn't it just feeding into their egos?

Most of the media revealed the name of the young man in the picture, the teenager making the gun gesture. Should the media have printed and aired his name since he is only 17-years old?

What do you think?

6 comments:

Pseudo said...

I think this kid is pretty irrelevant.
Printing his name is, in my opinion, pointless.
Maybe if the teenager had some sort of agenda, this would be newsworthy.
For example, if he were protesting the politician because of his policies.
But it just seems as if he is just some bored and/or rebellious kid trying to get a rise out of the media.
As I type this he is doubling over in laughter that the news even considers this significant.

That is the way I see it.

Unknown said...

I agree I believe printing the teenager name is really not important to the over point of the article, which is to show a collective gang and their rebellion again society. The media is helping us to understand what is going on in the world. They are not directly feeding the teens egos. The media ( BBC) is making us knowledgeable consumers.

Pak said...

This was just some kid trying to look cool on TV. I wouldn't have aired his name just to make sure he didn't get the satisfaction of other people knowing it was him. Bragging about smoking weed? Come on.

Gillian Francella said...

I think it's good to let these kids act like idiots on TV. I think that it was smart to film them and blur their faces out because then it won't matter if they were trying to "look cool" because no one knows who they are. The one kid that made a gun gesture at a politician, I think should have been shown since he was the story. I agree with the above statements that this, although it is idiotic looking, is a social protest and is offering an alternative view in news.

Laura R said...

If they were going to post anything, they should have gone all the way. There is no point in safeguarding someone who is asking for trouble.

Berryman, A said...

I feel as if it was unesscessary for the media to post this picture. By posting this picture I feel like the media ia egging on this and making him entertainment.