This last Saturday, iconic singer and performer Whitney Houston passed away.  Her music and talented voice inspired many other performers and her fans.  However, her relationship with Bobby Brown and her addiction to illegal substances were detrimental to her mental stability and happiness.  Her downfall in the public eye probably led to her early death.  Being an addict and going to rehab is not easy and it certainly isn’t easier when the world is following your every move and judging each one.

            Thinking of human dignity, the media often (if not always) hounds a person/celebrity/official/etc. and picks apart their every move and when tragedy strikes that person the media goes after them relentlessly.  When there is nothing left to dissect, the media abandons the person.  Whitney’s last media appearance was on Bobby Brown’s VH1 reality show and after that we didn’t hear much of her.  Now, with her death, her songs are topping the iTunes charts.  It seems that forgotten celebrities are always suddenly remembered and praised for what they did after they die.  How come our society is always quick to feed off of negative media and quick to forget it as soon as the next big story comes along?  There are always stories about victims of violence or horrible disasters, but the media never follows up on them or tries to find a positive perspective.  The media exploits these people, but doesn’t care about the pain they cause.  I think this has a lot to do with our society’s increased use of technology and multimedia websites (texting, virtual friends, etc).  We need to find a better way to communicate with each other and the media needs to find a more sensitive way to present people’s stories.