Dear Editors,

This letter concerns the media attention surrounding the recent drinking deaths at CU and CSU. In theory, mainstream media acts as a conduit for unbiased, truthful information dissemination. In practice, I consider it a mosh pit for loud-mouthed talking heads and self-serving newspaper reporters looking for a chance to spew their shortsighted two cents to anyone who can stand to listen.

The largest fault of mainstream media is that it focuses its consumers on laying blame rather than on taking responsibility. No mainstream media source in its right mind would blame the students who died or the parents who raised them. There’s simply a better story if those actors are placed in a sympathetic light. Truth is shortchanged when media outlets choose not to present the less glamorous side of the story.

In this case, the presentation of a half-story effectively sends the message that institutions (colleges, frats, the judicial system, etc…) should take responsibility for the actions of all their members (students, pledges, citizens, etc…). I think this is unfair, impractical, and contrary to the notion of free will. It should be the responsibility of students to make decisions that will not leave them dead, and it should be their parents’ responsibility to teach them such decision-making skills. When institutions create laws that keep under-educated people from harming themselves, people who can enjoy their rights while acting responsibly have their freedoms unfairly limited. In short, ignorance is a greater crime than excessive alcohol consumption, because one cannot happen without the other.

If you think I’m an unsympathetic (choose your own expletive), then you’re at least half-right. I constantly read stories in major newspapers about tragedies that are of no real significance while stories about issues that really do matter, but are less conducive to finger-pointing and stop-gap solutions, are relegated to the back pages. That the deaths of some US students could trump the genocide in Sudan for front-page copy illustrates our poorly ordered priorities. While the story of these two deaths may spur action for a time, the people affected by the deaths will leave the school and the lessons supposedly learned will be forgotten. In a few years, another student fresh out of high school will subvert the measures enacted by institutions in the wake of the recent deaths and drink him or herself to death because their parents really didn’t learn anything from the half-story they received about Gordie Bailey and Samantha Spady and, thus, never took responsibility for teaching their kid about alcohol. If you have kids, may I suggest that, instead of leaving them to watch “Today” or read “US Weekly”, you chat with them about one of myriad life-or-death decisions they will have to make when they leave your white-picket womb.

Thanks for reading,Matt Meehan