All The News That's Unfit to Print

In the past ten minutes, I've read two news stories that have me seething with frustration.

The first was that a court in Australia has decided to let a quadriplegic man starve to death if he wants to. This is way too much like that misdirected (if you'll excuse the pun) schmaltz, "Whose Life Is It, Anyway?". In the news report, it's not mentioned how long the guy has been a quad. It may be as little as a year. I'm sorry, a year is not long enough to recover from the trauma and adjust to a new life.

The man complains that he can't even read a newspaper by himself anymore. I'm gobsmacked. Has no one in Australia or even his nursing home ever heard of assistive technology? Or even a mouth stick?

I realize that newspapers can't accurately reflect reality. They have limited space, but I don't think there are limited pixels. What's the real story here? How long has he been injured? Did he receive counseling? Physical therapy? Is he, for some reason, unable to control a power chair?

Even if he's been asking for this ruling since November 2008, when he moved into this nursing home, that's not long enough to decide a life or death issue. It isn't.

Granted, I have not been in his position, but I know plenty of other people who are and none of them are sitting around moaning about wanting to die.

The other story is about a five year old boy, Hassani Campbell, who has cerebral palsy and is missing. I'll leave the editorializing about the situation, because I want to focus on this statement from CNN.com:

cerebral palsy is a debilitating brain disease that inhibits motor skills.

This makes it sound like...well, like MS, where the condition may drastically worsen over time. I realize that there can be cognitive deficits involved with CP but has never been the case with CPers I've encountered.

Here's a definition from the Internet, so you know it's true:

a loss or deficiency of motor control with involuntary spasms caused by permanent brain damage present at birth

I realize that in the greater scheme of things, these two incidents may dwindle in importance.

Still, shoddy reporting, incomplete reporting and untruths annoy me. A lot. And I think diminish the people they're writing about.

Get your facts straight. And get them all. And shame on any editor who keeps them from hitting the screen the way they were meant to be.