Terri Schiavo and Blogger Slacktivism

I’ve kind of passed this one by because I deal with terrible stuff every day on the domestic violence front and I figure this one is not my business. What I’m thinking about here is the family with no idea how to deal with media suddenly needing to handle all that every day. I’m willing to bet nothing is normal for the family anymore, and some members will get sucked in, think they’re God’s gift to whatever, and soon be seen on some trash reality program.

If you remember that little girl in Texas who fell down the well, the whole community was damaged.  Her parents divorced, the sheriff in charge ended up in therapy, and it was an eventual disaster for all involved. The whole town will never be the same.

When you’ve got a ton of attention focused on a handful of people with nothing much to do, suddenly the minute becomes movie material. Somebody farts and it’s cause for blogs and discussion around the world. It’s not like earthquakes or floods or those things, because everybody has something to do in those cases that takes them away from the cameras and tape recorders, at least momentarily.

I’ve done more than my share of standing around in hospitals and nursing homes, and believe me, the tiniest detail of anything suddenly assumes major importance.

Did the doc raise her eyebrow when she told us the news? Was the nurse more concerned with the IV than he was with the catheter bag? Is it two degrees cooler in here? They don’t do that stuff on ER, do they? Is there anyplace easier to sit? Would they give me an aspirin for my headache if I asked? What are they not telling us?

Even non-public individuals have well-meaning friends second-guessing everything, so often home is no respite, either, when we deal with the phone calls from those who “just know” how badly we’re handling things.

It’s not my intention to slam any of my blogging buds for expressing interest. Most of them will move on after expressing an interest, and/or an opinion. The problem I’m seeing is that there apparently are groups of bloggers forming, all with their opinion on this matter.

Good people, please try to understand this is not our business. While obviously family members have done their bit to put this situation in the public arena, they really had no idea what they were doing. People with no media training tend to think their problems will be magically solved by media attention. They do not understand that all you get from media attention is media attention.

As bloggers with a very real means of tracking public opinion, and influencing that same public voice, I implore each of you to allow this situation to devolve back to the place where it should be, as a situation involving a family and a local court jurisdiction. We do no one any service by placing the plight of a woman, who is seriously ill with family members in dispute over her care, into the public arena. It cannot be helpful for Terri herself.

All the new groups of bloggers I'm hearing about in the cause of Terri are doing is making themselves feel better at the expense of the actual family and the lady who is ill.

This kind of activity is called “slacktivism” among those of us who have been activists for a variety of causes affecting society at large. There are many ways each of these well-intentioned individuals can make a difference, if they are honest about helping change the world.

The first, and most obvious to me, would be to help educate the public on the value and power of the media and what to do with it. Time after time, that notion that media attention on its own will solve any problem keeps coming up, and those who get sucked into believing it find themselves far worse off than before.

Comments

[anon]

My comment doesn't regard the major topic of your entry, which I pretty much agree with. But what the heck are you talking about regarding Jessica McClure (the girl who fell down the well) and Midland (the "town" of 100,000 people where it happened)? Having grown up there, and living there when the incident happened and a while afterwards, I can say that Midland is none the worse for wear for the event. Most people there remember it like anyone else who saw it on TV, except with a "that was here!" tacked on. "The whole town will never be the same" is ridiculous; you can find much better examples for your point than this.

[American Daughter]

In general, I would agree that no one is helped by busybodies. But this case is way different. She is about to be starved and dehydrated to death, a fate we would not even inflict on a convicted serial killer. The folks on death row get a humane injection, not ten days of excruciating agony. No one in America should be quiet on this one.

[John]

Thank you for a thoughful and reasoned post.

[marknoonan]

Once it got into the courts it became a matter of public record and therefore of public interest. Regardless of how one feels about this issue, it has now become a public issue and the public will have its say - eventually to the matter of settling law on this issue.

It would have been better had this remained a purely family issue - but the disagreements between family members apparently became intractable and thus resort was made to the courts. The cat is firmly out of the bag and there's not putting it back in.

Additionally, the issue has risen to the level of national importance because there must be a national, public debate about the how, why and when a person die when they incapable of speaking for themselves.

[Beth]

I implore you to reconsider your view of this. Not because I'm involved in the blogburst, but because Terri Schiavo's family has ASKED for publicity. They've hired Randall Terry (see http://www.societyfortruthandjustice.com/ ) to handle the media and organization of activists. There are professionals that know what we're doing and continue to ask for our support.

I can understand where you may be coming from, but not all situations are the same. If you are interested, you should see what we're doing, particularly at the Hyscience blog ( http://hyscience.typepad.com/hyscience/terri_schiavos_life_counts/index.html ). He's organizing the blogging effort because he is a friend of the family, has been involved with this for some time, and has spoken with Randall Terry about all of this.