Asking The Wrong Questions About Steve McNair
Monday, July 6th, 2009I liked Steve McNair. I saw him play several times and he was an exciting quarterback. He was in Hoots last year to see his nephews practice at a game. I knew he was in town, didn’t bother him because, well, I don’t like to be bothered myself. He was there to see his nephews and we stayed away so he could do that but it was the talk of the town.
I was like others who were shocked that he was murdered this weekend. I guess my brain was just as interested on the whys of his death as much as anyone. Once again, Twitter was on fire about what was going on and wondering about why this man was shot to death.
I’ve covered several murder trials (here in Hoots, we just don’t have that many quite frankly) and I have learned one thing. You have to let the police do their jobs in investigating every crime scene. I was always very careful not to get in the way at these things. Actually, murder/car wreck scenes are messy and my favorite thing to do was to cover the trials that followed a criminal investigation.
I know that it may not be popular to say in a world where instant communication is demanded by a hungry public, but I think cops just need to be allowed to do their jobs.
With that said, the National Lampoon website, of all places, takes a serious moment and asks a very good question.
Millions of football fans in and outside of Nashville want to know why McNair was murdered this weekend. It is indeed the most important question, as is often stressed in this blog. And indeed the answer should be made public to bring his murderers to justice. But that isn’t the juicy part of the story is it? The media is instead asking loudly why Steve McNair was in an apartment with a 20 year old woman who isn’t his wife?
The real question is, why do we need to know?
News these days is about the “sexy” bits. Was Michael Jackson on drugs, were Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O’Neal together when she died or we were even bombarded about Ed McMahon’s financial troubles were dissected after he passed away.
I saw these items discussed a great deal over the past two weeks
When policy is being debated on, let’s say on a school project, we find that we don’t hear about that like we do about the latest spat between Jon and Kate.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m no saint about this stuff either. I want to know the whys too but I don’t really care about McNair being with a woman who isn’t his wife. (I do want to know, however, if Mark Sanford used taxpayers money to go see his booty call in Argentina. We work hard for that cash and that’s my interest in that case. I see elected officials differently than I do celebrities for that reason alone.)
We live in interesting times when it comes to our fascination for celebrity news. I am often morose about these things, but I do know that we tend to look at the emotional parts of this case instead of the fact that a man was murdered. If she killed him or if someone else did, it really comes down to the crime committed.
Now if you want to see an ongoing look about other under reported crimes in Nashville, especially in the Salem/Germantown area, go see S-TownMike.
Those folks have families mourning too, you know, they just weren’t famous.
