Why I Hate Local News

and all kinds of other news shows as well

some LA station is reporting on the "Spitzer sex scandal"

'cuz the most important thing is that it's all about sex. It's not about a public official who was entrusted with enforcing laws now being charged with doing something that's illegal, the hypocrisy of him going after johns while being one, or that he endangered the lives of others - including his wife - by trying to coerce a prostitute into letting him not wear a condom. No, it's really just the sex that matters.

and they keep calling the woman who blew the whistle on Spitzer a "call-girl"

'cuz it's not like there aren't better words they could use, or that she is an adult who deserves the respect of being addressed as one, or that it matters if we imply statutory rape and then ignore the implication, therefore suggesting that charges of rape amount to nothing more than a "sex scandal."

and yet, when they quote some idiot on her myspace page, they replace "whore" with "prostitute"

or, at least, that's what one assumes they were replacing, since "prostitute" was written as "[prostitute]" on the visual aid screen

'cuz it's all fine and good to treat sex itself as both worse and more newsworthy than illegal activity, conflate rape and sex, infantilize a grown woman, quote people who call her names, or use silly euphemisms ourselves, but god forbid we use something as disrespectful as "whore" on local television.

at 11pm.

even if it means inaccurately reporting the name-callers as being more polite than the local news.