Untrustworthy Media

Early on, I learned not to trust the media. Not that journalists are bad, but the process can really sacrifice the private individual to get the story. Not necessarily the correct story, but the story that will sell, that will have the slant they think will grab the most attention. We did a half hour talk show to help promote Newborn Hope. When we arrived for the taping, I asked our escort how we were going to cover the information. I was told they’d talk to me about it in the green room. There I asked again, I was told the director would tell us. At our first commercial break, I asked the anchors. I was put off for a third time and told we’d get to it. Meanwhile they kept talking about “people with big families” as their theme, which had nothing to do with multiples or Newborn Hope. And they kept trying to get us to get the kids to run around the studio, not to stop them, to let them do whatever they wanted for the cameras. They were two years old, shy, well-behaved, and weren’t going to put on a chaotic monkey show for them. They stayed within a couple of feet (or centimeters) of Jason and me. Finally, at the very end, after a bunch of call-in questions that related to nothing about us, one of the anchors said I could talk about the reason we were there. I explained about Newborn Hope, its mission, its hope. When I finished, the anchors were taking off their mics, saying, “Oh, sorry. We’ve been off the air.” They had their show. We didn’t get to any of the reason for why we were even there.
 
 I wrote yesterday about the paper camping out with us for a day. When the story came out, it felt so inaccurate to me. I didn’t like that slant. They emphasized stuff about peeing that didn’t reflect our reality. Especially the part about Molly wanting to be like the boys. (You’ll see in the article I’m going to include.) Two-year-old boys learning to use the potty (in my experience) learn sitting down. That’s frank but it’s the truth. (You’ll see in a sec.) And when they say Molly squatted in the yard to pee, I believe they just made that up. I never saw that happen. She didn’t do that. Why would she suddenly do that for the camera? And many of the pictures they chose for the spread had them naked. Drove me crazy. Plus, of course, they used the absolutely worst picture of me, when I’m about ready to collapse because they would not go away! I did not like that, Sam I Am!
 
So you may wonder why I would even post it. There are a few aspects that are of interest. It goes through our day to give some kind of a picture of how our day unfolded—when a newspaper crew is watching you all the live long day. Just remember, the slant isn’t necessarily reality. Click here to see the whole article. (I had some trouble compressing the file, so it takes a minute to upload. Sorry!)