OK magazine used the pregnancy of Jamie Lynn Spears  to glamorize teenage pregnancy.This celebrity allure excludes the harsh reality and consequences of teen motherhood.

When OK! Magazine announced 16-year-old Nickelodeon star Jamie Lynn Spears’ pregnancy in December 2007, “it was the best-selling issue since the magazine’s American debut in 2005,” says Rob Shuter, OK!’s executive editor.  In an OK Magazine interview in July 2008, Jamie Lynn wants everyone to know that “being a mom is the best feeling in the world,” she’s “happy all the time.” However,Candi Johnson a 19 year old pregnant teen mother disagrees with Spears and was in no way desensitized by  Spears OK interview.

While OK had a frenzy over the teen star’s  shocking ordeal,did the magazine help teen mothers by destigmatizing the issue, or did it recklessly spread the message that being a pregnant teen is, well, OK?Though it is wonderful, for her sake and the baby’s, that Jamie Lynn is adapting to motherhood so well, the interview creates a fairy tale notion of early motherhood. Spears comes from a financially stable family, and seem to be on track to have an array of future opportunities that a more typical teen mom might lack. However this is not the case for an everyday teen mother. According to Monica Drinane of the Legal Aid Society, teen mothers are “typically from our poorest neighborhoods, they are less likely to complete high school, go to college or get married.” Former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin disclosed that her 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, was pregnant, would have the baby and would marry the boyfriend.

“Teen births do have substantial, widespread negative effects, especially for the children of teen mothers,” said University of Delaware economist Saul Hoffman. Given the statistics that 750,000 young women will become pregnant this year, (according to CBS news) one must ask, why are so many young girls getting pregnant?

Spears tale is a familiar terrain in the media landscape. Teen pregnancy has become a hot plot device lately, showing up in two new television shows–ABC Family’s “Secret Life” and NBC’s “Baby Borrowers.” These shows do not portray the negative connotations that are simultaneous to teen motherhood. They rarely address the importance of abstinence and contraception worse the stress and responsibilities that a “non-celebrity” teenage mother encounters.

 Undoubtedly television and magazines are very influential to young girls and should serve to reinforce the real issues behind teenage motherhood.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lapdogs,written by Eric Boehlert, demonstrates that for the entire George W. Bush presidency,the news media have utterly failed in their duty as watchdog for the public.

Eric Boehlert reveals how, time after time, the press chose a soft approach to covering the government, and as a result reported and analyzed crucial events incompletely and even inaccurately. Mainstream media houses such as The New York Times, CBS, Fox News and Time Magazine too often ignored the administration’s missteps and misleading words, and did not call out the public officials who betrayed the country’s trust.

Throughout both presidential campaigns and the entire Iraq war to date, the press acted as a virtual mouthpiece for the White House, giving watered-down coverage of major policy decisions, wartime abuses of power, and sometimes these events never made it into the news at all. As Walter Lipmann posits, “if we assume that the news and truth are two words for the same thing we shall arrive nowhere.”

The press serves under the Bush administration as another special interest group that needed to be either appeased or held at bay or, in some cases, squashed. The administration actively undermined the basic tenets of accurate and fair journalism. Despite failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite a spending spree putting the nation on the precipice of bankruptcy, despite an administration that has put us at the brink of WW III, Fox News treats Bush with credibility.

According to Amann and Breur in Fair and Balanced My Ass, “FOX isn’t broadcasting news; it’s broadcasting, GOP talking points. Its purpose is not to convey the truth about events, but to distort information to achieve political goals of the Republican Party.” More Americans need to understand that the news media is just as responsible as the politicians for stealing national treasure and wasting it in Iraq. Basically, the entire purpose and pursuit of journalism today, according to Michael Parent, “is sacrificed for economic and political interests.” “ Media houses such as MSNBC have now come out with the ‘truth’ about Bush and the Iraq war, but the damage has already been done.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHmUkawhAko 

Boehlert, as much as I am, is aghast at how the news media has propped a failed administration, guilty of illegalities, deception, fraud, negligence and gross failure. Laying this out he writes, ”makes the conclusion that the press rolled over bush -inescapable.” It is disturbing that reporters delivering the nightly news are helping to “fix the facts” for the Bush Administration. We should never forget that the first thing Adolph Hitler changed when he began his horrid journey of murder and control was the media. He used them to further his cause. I’m not saying that Bush is Hitler, but history shows us how this important medium can be misused. Maybe we didn’t get a chance to stop Bush (considering the presidential election is in 7 days), but it’s never too late for the news media to provide balanced coverage owed to the public.