Newsworthy? Adult Attacks Teen Umpire
The television news in Western Australia reported “a sickening attack upon an umpire” this week.
The umpire is a 13-year-old boy who was refereeing an under 11 Australian football match. Apparently, he sent a player off the field for a misdemeanor, and a 47-year-old woman took offence to this and assaulted the teen.
In my opinion, nobody should assault a teen boy or girl who is minding their own business, whether he or she is an umpire or not!
If you were into sports, you may have been vitally interested in the news headline declaring “sickening attack upon umpire.”
If you weren’t, you may have passed over this news about an umpire as you have no interest at all in umpires.
It all depends upon your associations.
If the headlines were “unprovoked attack upon young umpire” how many viewers would be grabbed by this declaration?
The words that the media use shape our attention greatly.
With this story, I was aggrieved that a boy was abused by an adult, who should have known better, and had a weight advantage over the teen, but you wouldn’t have thought this the case from the news headlines.
The emphasis was upon the “umpire.” Everyone should take umbrage over umpires being wrongfully attacked.
But why?
It’s because umpires are professional people in sport doing their best job, sometimes in challenging and demanding circumstances, working hard to adjudicate or referee our sports.
Or is it because the umpire is sacrosanct or not to be touched, but a boy or a teen or a non-umpire is not so much?
Does it really matter?
Perhaps not, but perhaps yes, if the headlines influenced viewers to take note that people should not mess with umpires.
If the headlines were “adult attacks teen umpire” the viewer might think an adult shouldn’t assault a teenager, or an adult shouldn’t attack a teen umpire, with the emphasis on the one being attacked as a teenager.
Words do come easy sometimes to the media, when they want to highlight one aspect of an incident, in this case, DON’T MESS WITH THE UMPIRE.
The message from the full story to me was: Adults don’t attack teenagers.
This teaches us that we need to be open to the full facts and issues, and dig for them when on the surface something arrests your attention.
This applies to everything in Life, not just to media headlines.
About the Author
Celine Lai was born in Malaya (not Malaysia) and is the oldest inter-country adopted person in Australia. She loves reading and writing, and runs WordPress blogs and writes technical documents. She blogs mainly on Fascinating Animals.
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