Speaking of sensationalized news that doesn’t bode well for the future of humankind as we walk ever closer to the abyss…. On Wednesday, news broke that a 25-year-old Kelowna woman had been arrested in Washington State for allegedly threatening to kill her teenaged boyfriend who happens to be a junior hockey player for the Tri-City Americans. Perhaps tellingly, the woman’s Twitter bio reads, “The first rule of life, love and hockey is the same...”
The fact that the woman was a freelance reporter for Castanet, an online news website in Kelowna, and had also written for the Kelowna Daily Courier piqued the interest of people around the Courier office mainly because the most exciting things in our lives these days are attending going-away parties for co-workers and finding creative ways to augment reality. But we suspect the reason why this story has gotten so much play is because of the titillating notion of an older woman dating a teenager— though it should be said the dude will be 20 later this year — and the fact this woman is blonde, attractive and prone to taking selfies, which newspapers can then turn into online photo galleries containing some 33 images to really flesh out the issue.
All of which begs the question, is there a double standard going on here? Surely far more men are arrested for allegedly threatening their girlfriends or spouses and don’t make headlines. And if a 25-year-old man was arrested for allegedly threatening a teenage girlfriend who happened to play amateur sports, would we see photos of this dude, let alone a 33-image photo gallery, spread across the Internet for the sole purpose of “click bait.” We doubt it. The first rule of life, love and media these days is the same ...
