Of Power and Popularity and the Media

But yesterday, Terri Schiavo passed away - ending a life at the center of what could be the defining moment in the civil rights discussion of the 21st Century. No matter where you believed the Schiavo case should have wound up, it is unquestionably a matter of discussion for quite some time.

But, Terri's unfortunate demise is overshadowed, almost in the same day, by a sudden turn for the worse in the health of Pope John Paul II. The Pope is an old man - frail and infirm, suffering through the final stages of old age - an affliction that none of us escapes, even if we survive all of the other things that may kill us sooner. Nobody should be surprised that he is on his deathbed, yet the coverage on the radio has been like a play-by-play of a sporting event.

Most of us pass http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.giffrom this world more or less unnoticed by all but our closest friends and family. A few rare people attract a bit more attention when they finally die (for example, Pierre Trudeau)

Yet, at a time when Terri Schiavo has yet to even be buried, the world's attention turns away from her and the plight that was her life. The media is suddenly focusing on the unremarkable passage of the Pope's final hours. It appears that attention in the media is like my parrot's - short lived at best, until something shinier shows up. I realize that the Roman Catholic church is huge, and that they possess the spiritual lives of a lot of this world's people. The death of a Pope is a major event in the scheme of things - and for the next few weeks, we will no doubt hear about all of the good that Pope John Paul II did for the world - repeatedly. For all that I disagreed with the man on many topics, I do admire him for his intellect and what he did contribute to the spiritual community. This is not my point at all. The Pope's death is very average - insignificantly so - he will die as many of us do, ending a long, public life. Does he leave the kind of society shaking questions that Terri's passage did? No.

Instead, we have a situation where the media is attracted not to the real issues of the world, but like a magpie to the shiniest thing in sight. The powerful and popular get the focus. Cases like Terri's quickly become back page news - taking the back seat to ailing Popes, and celebrities like Michael Jackson - who is on trial for behaving like a Priest.

Terri Schiavo's case opens a whole raft of questions about disabled rights, quality of life, wishes of the severely ill, the right to die, rights of family - both by marriage and by blood, the government's involvement in those decisions. The world needs to take these issues seriously.

I can only hope that once the Pope is dead and buried, that the media does the world a service, and once again turns its attention to the issues that Terri Schiavo's life - and death - came to represent.