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The McStays Need to McStay Out of the News

By John Danz Jr

Why does America act so surprised that a family of four just vanishes into thin air? I'm not surprised in the least.

I have this really stupid thing I do - it's called caring about news stories that actually amount to something and can get me to think rather than theorize.

The fact that I've seen people trying to make their own theories out of this story entertains me greatly. Everyone is a detective these days! Joe Dick could be saying that the family all dropped acid and rode on the backs of unicorns to an alternate universe, John Doe could say that they all held hands and jumped into the Grand Canyon. No matter the story, I won't believe a word of it.

I'm not singling out the McStay family here - there's a lot of idiotic stories out there that need to take long walks off of short piers.

For example, I go to search top stories on Google, and I'm bombarded with stories about porno, Hanna Montana supposedly being naked, another mistress of Tiger Woods, [insert advertisement break here - can't go 15 seconds without one of those] American Idol, Dancing With the Stars, Lady GaGa... you get the idea.

I've often wondered how quality, consummate journalism takes a back seat to the culturally-deficient stories we all have shoved down our throats on a daily basis.

Is it because America is getting dumber? Are our journalists losing sight of the desire for quality writing that made them pursue the career in the first place? Or, is America just more content with garbage and the writers placate them with garbage? I'd love to hear back from an older journalist on this to give me a better perspective on how our fascination with absolute crap has become so strong over the years.

I'm sure if the first moon landing were to take place today, there would be some sort of celebrity hot topic to supersede it and steal all of the glory. In fact, I guarantee that.

If the news broke today that Kennedy had been shot, I can safely bet that the majority of Americans would be fixated on TMZ or some other biased gossip site to get updates on the event. It might come to be that a Matrix man threw a rock at his head at 2000 feet per second and vanished into the next dimension.

I think at my age, many people would expect me to be writing about pointless American Idol and celebrity crap. Looking at the blogs of some of my fellow teenage writers, I know for sure that I expect it out of them.

Sometimes, I just want to vomit.

However, I know that the key to being a good journalist is quality writing, but gripping quality writing. I will never lose sight of that brass ring, and I will never lower myself to trade real writing for views or followers.

John Danz Jr. is a work in progress, who enjoys the freedom of writing. Contact him at undertakerlives@gmail.com.