Media being media

I was reading up on a story recently of actress Sarah Hyland talking about her two kidney transplants and someone in the comments had mentioned how a magazine called the Star Magazine without knowing about her condition had been writing articles with titles such as "her weight drops to scary levels", "she's only 85 pounds", etc while she was on dialysis after the first kidney transplant failed. Here's the rest of the thread including the video where she discusses how difficult of a time in her life it was.

The magic of Reddit comes forward again after watching that video and looking at the top comments to see "mad respect for Phil and Luke" <-- Modern Family watchers will understand the joke.

Looking deeper into the comments I stumbled on a Twitter collection of the British media going ham on footballer Raheem Sterling for no particular reason and sort of building up on it as if they news outlets are trying to one up each other on how they can portray an innocent person in the worst ways possible just because they can.

I will be quoting texts from this twitter feed by Adam Keyworth (follow him on Twitter if football interests you) and will paste the images of the articles here as well for easier reading. Original Source here

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1. The one where Raheem was 'tired'.

1. The one where Raheem was labelled 'footie idiot' for no apparent reason.

1. The one where Raheem was 'greedy' for wanting a pay rise after a successful season.

1. The one where Raheem was 'obscene' having bought his mum a nice sink out of his own money.

1. The one where Raheem dared to fly on a budget airline.

1. The one where Raheem forgot to clean his car.

1. The one where Raheem the 'love rat' dared to propose to his 'long-suffering' girlfriend.

1. The one where Raheem was called a 'rat' for being seen with a friend on holiday.

1. The one where Raheem dared to eat breakfast even though he didn't win Young Player of the Year.

1. The one where Raheem got a personal tattoo because he wanted to dedicate something to his dad who was shot and killed when Raheem was just 2.

1. The one where Raheem dared to buy some batteries from Poundland.

1. The one where Raheem had the audacity to go to Greggs for his dinner.

1. The one where Raheem bought some clothes.

1. The one where Raheem dared to go on two holidays in one week.

1. The one where Raheem inhaled from a balloon and the term 'hippy crack' was coined.

1. The one where they worked out the total cost for every car Raheem has ever driven.

1. The one where they linked two tragic stabbings to Raheem's new tattoo.

1. The one where they haven't apologised for their front page, but instead are digging deeper into Raheem's personal life. They just can't stop.

1. The one where Sky Sports News add 'again' to Raheem's statement about never touching a gun.

1. The one where The Sun uses the father of murdered 10 year old Damilola Taylor to speak out against Raheem.
   Two front pages in two days.

1. The one where the only way the Mail will stop hounding Raheem Sterling for doing nothing wrong is if he leads England to a World Cup win.

1. The one where The Telegraph use a picture of Raheem to front their story of underpaying workers in Bangladesh.

1. The one where The Sun had Raheem on the back page (again) 'apologising' after being GIVEN an extended break.

1. The one where The Star printed ANOTHER back page on Raheem and got angry because Southgate backed Sterling even after giving him extra time off.

1. The one where The Mail couldn't help but get involved, because Raheem went to work a few hours laye. Without quotes. Shock.

1. The one where the BBC went with this headline after a game that England won, and Raheem got an assist. 'Goal drought'. Incredible.

1. The one where The Sunday Times ignore England's win, and instead run a back page on Sterling being booked. Speechless.

1. The one where Raheem ended up on the back pages again because it's a day ending in Y. Tiresome.

1. The one where England winning on penalties to get to the quarter finals of a World Cup wasn't quite enough without going after Raheem...

1. The one where Raheem dared to eat ice cream on holiday with his fiancée after England were beaten in extra time of the semi final they were never supposed to reach. 'Devastation'.

1. The one where 'former Liverpool player' Jermaine Pennant is accused of cheating on his partner in Big Brother, but @FanSidedSoccer decide this would be the right headline picture to run with. Strange, hey.

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This is just despicable.

I have to admit I have always disliked the player throughout his Liverpool and Manchester City days but if someone had asked me why I would have blamed it on the way he plays or something of that nature. Imagine though if I've happened to read some of these stories and unconsciously disliked him more and more no matter what he did on the field and I don't even read a lot of these news - how will it be for people living in the U.K?

It's just weird how much power Media can have nowadays and that they can literally ruin your image just because you're unlucky and they have nothing better to post about at that given time.

I am looking forward to media being re-invented. What used to only consist of a few newspapers per city back in the day is being decentralized over the web to thousands and thousands of authors instead. People have a broader choice now and I can only see it growing once the incentives fall into place.