I have a part-time job at Cub Foods to somewhat support myself while I am attending Hamline University. My job is not a career move and I hope to some day end my employment with this business, but not until I find a full-time teaching position, Lord willing, by 2010-2011 school year. I can't wait! I am looking forward to it, too.
As we all know, the checkout areas of all grocery stores have displays of tabloids and magazines. While working last week Monday, I overheard the following comments from some customers who had just noticed the tabloid headlines. I will script the dialogue for clarity purposes:
Person 1: "Man, the media have no idea what is happening in the world, do they?"
Person 2: "Nope. They are in their own little world."
Person 1: "It appears that they just write what they THINK is happening in the world and we're all supposed to believe it."
Person 2: "They need a reality check because they are so out of it."
That is all that I heard because they moved farther away and I lost the rest of the conversation.
My first thought was that the media are a reflection of ourselves and the media are reporting on what is happening in the world. Therefore if they thought that the media were "out of it" then that means that the masses are "out of it" because the media are reporting what is happening, not inventing things (well, tabloids "invent" things, but I think they were referring to People or Time Magazine or something). Also the magazine could have a hidden agenda and using that to sway people towards an opinion that the magazine was supportig. Thus what these two women think is actually the other way around.
Knowing that these two people were far beyond any thought to dissuade them that their thinking was wrong, I did not comment to these two ladies. However, I did say that perhaps they should write a letter to the editor of the magazine if they felt that strongly about it. While now embarrassed that I had heard their whole conversation, they stopped talking. (Hello! I'm checking your groceries two feet from you and I am a person with ears! It amazes me every time when people think that I cannot hear their conversations.)
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I don't really know what particular person or "event" they were talking about actually. I know that it was from Time or Peaople because they had mentioned that the reporters try to understand the American public, but in actuality they don't know anything. I wish I knew myself because then this comment could make even more senese to see how they thought the event was fabricated, exaggerated, or even made up.
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