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Editorials   Keeping The Media In Check
- By Mike Schneider [Editor In Chief]

Mike Schneider recently sent a lengthy email to Karen Hunter regarding her column, "MTV kids need to tune in to life." Read it here:

Dear Karen,

I was only recently made aware of your March 28th column, but nonetheless I feel the need to defend these so-called “vidiots” you speak of, and in more general terms, my generation on the whole.

Wow. I am the editor in chief of a Nintendo website, ngenres.com. So yes, I have played my share of videogames over the course of my 19 years on this planet. I enjoy watching MTV on occasion. I have attended The Matrix Reloaded and X-Men 2 in the past month, so, I assume that I must qualify as someone who watches action movies on occasion. However, I am also amongst the large percent of people who participate in these activities, AND am still aware of the world around them.

You are amongst the mainstream media that likes to point at videogames as a desensitization tool. Well, can you explain to me why I cried more than any other person at my Grandpa’s funeral, yet I also have likely played more hours of violent videogames than any other person at the funeral? I’m curious to hear if I’m just an exception to the rule and am lucky to be blessed with the understanding that death is the only permanent thing in life, or why I am not at all desensitized to death. Or maybe it is just that society likes to find excuses for its problems, and videogames offer a convenient excuse?

When you cite National Geographic’s survey, I am absolutely dumbfounded about how those statistics could be anything other than one statistician’s agenda to try to “prove” American youth is dumb as rocks. I could do all of the aforementioned in their survey when I was in first grade. I do not think I could name one person in my graduating class of 469 who wouldn’t be able to locate Iraq, the United States, or New York on a map. Granted, it would be very easy to hunt out the uneducated, survey those people, and proclaim the results as entirely conclusive.

Regarding the war, I will make the concession there are a large number of teenaged people who are quite oblivious to what is happening. However, isn’t that quite true of ANY age group? I am in a middle class family and I guarantee you I know more about why America should or shouldn’t be in Iraq than my 40 year-old parents do. The trends you are pointing out are nationwide trends, not just trends within youth.

I could cite the fact that it is somewhat hypocritical of the Bush administration to go against the UN and make war, while condemning Iraq for not fully complying with the UN. I can support the fact that Saddam is an evil tyrant, yet still question whether Bush’s aims are to remove an evil
tyrant, or to gain a vast oil supply, of which Vice President Cheney is already reaping the benefits of (while offering the notion that IF the war was truly about removing an evil tyrant, than the US shouldn’t be stopping at Iraq). I can talk in detail about the need for the US to keep troops in Iraq upon removing Saddam, in order to prevent a Civil War from occurring within that nation, while also citing the dangers of quartering a large number of troops in Iraq and the threat of every terrorist organization striking our
troops. I know about the $95 billion estimated war cost, with additional costs to be incurred while keeping troops in Iraq and helping to rebuild the nation and provide food, and can question whether that money could have been spent better on domestic issues such as education. I realize that the Bush administration could offer no proof of WMD’s, yet affirmed that Iraq had them or were close to having them. I question whether the US, or any nation,
should be allowed to start an unprovoked war, but acknowledge that the situation may warrant it if substantial proof is found that Iraq harbored terrorists or had a WMD program in effect. Oh, and I am a journalism major, have never taken a political science class in college, and have never had to write about this event – in other words, I am amongst the many college aged people who do read the newspaper, watch CNN, and try to keep up to date on the world.

Furthermore, where do the bulk of anti-war protests take place? Even pro-war demonstrations, while we’re still talking about it. That’s right. College campuses. Maybe some of the people at the protests/demonstrations really are clueless about the underlying principles of why/why not, but yet, the fact they’re in attendance, it shows they care and they will learn more about why or why not by being there.

While on the topic of colleges, we may as well point out the fact that more people today are going to college than ever before. More people than ever before are taking AP classes and other high-level classes that challenge students. I’d hardly say that our generation is lagging behind, at all.

To top it off, I have been involved in debates with people in my dorm regarding the pros and cons of this Iraq strike. I go to the University of Iowa State, a public school, and lived on a floor largely regarded as an agriculture floor. I am just not seeing this overall apathy amongst my
generation that you have described. Maybe I’m living in a dream world of my own – but I tend to believe that you wrote the article with the specific agenda of demeaning my generation and settled for whatever information you could find to do so (your one class of THIRTY, and your brother).

Thank you,
Mike Schneider



For further insight into these topics, also check out Brett Fulesday's editorial at Nintendojo.