At the advice of her depression therapist, Oklahoma native, Christie Carr began volunteering at a local animal sanctuary. Within a week, she began to nurse Irwin, a partially paralyzed kangaroo, back to health after an accident that had left the young animal with a fractured neck and severe brain trauma. As Carr slowly Irwin gain mobility, she developed a bond with the little animal and has now requested to keep him. The kangaroo's vet, Dr. Lesleigh Cash Warren, supports Carr caring for the animal especially since "he will require a lifetime of care and concern for his welfare. While local county officials are concerned with the possibility of the marsupial regaining full mobility which could be dangerous due the size of full grown kangaroos, many people in the community don't understand the reason for worry. Broken Arrow Nursing Home owner Joanna Cooper states that Carr has brought Irwin to visit the residents before and doesn't understand "people giving her problems when people have tiger and pit bulls."
After reading this article, I immediately wanted to throw my support behind Carr and Irwin. To me, it seemed alright for her to care for the animal since it was paralyzed and couldn't live without constant care. But the way this article is presented demonstrates interesting media trends. There is a definite bias to supporting Carr and virtually no report on the perspective of the opposing party. So I immediately feel inclined to sympathize with Carr because I don't know the other side of the story. I'm not necessarily saying that my mind has changed on supporting Carr and Irwin. Instead, I believe the media needs to present both sides of an argument fairly and without bias. And if the media is still unwilling to do, then people need to seek reports from the opposing views so they can better formulate their own opinions rather than be fed the media's bias.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42371459/ns/us_news-wonderful_world/
As we have discovered through our own presentation, the media finds a way to skew basically every news story that appears to the public. Every story seems to be swayed toward one side rather than presenting both sides of a story allowing for an opinion to be formulated upon the entire coverage. This leads people's opinions to become so extreme on one side, that we fail to open our minds to the other viewpoint which fuels a less civil discourse.
ReplyDeleteThis is so interesting! I definitely have never heard of this form of treatment for depression before. However, it seems to have worked for Christie Carr. After reading the article, I agree that it evokes sympathy for Carr's side of the story. I feel as if most published articles do tend to be somewhat biased however. It is something to look for when reading information from the web.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really good observation. Most people don't notice how the media sometimes manipulates the information given in order to encourage people to hold a certain opinion. Because of this, most people never hear the other side, and once people believe in something, it's hard to change their mind.
ReplyDeleteBeing aware of the media's strategies though is a good start, and it helps people to form better and more educated opinions.
I am really glad that you were very observant with the media and how the media manipulated this information. I find it interesting to see that people have something against Carr owning a kangaroo when people really do own tigers and pit bulls. Once again we see how the media pushes people's views to extreme sides and makes people neglect other factors.
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