TV Guide Puts “WTF” On Front Cover, Lowest Common Denominator Wins Again

I am always dismayed when I see yet another sign of the lowest common denominator making inroads in our nation.  Such was the case this weekend while standing in line at the grocery checkout line.  On the stacks among various publications was TV Guide, and I had to do a double-take since there was no way what I saw the first time could have been correct.  Clearly my bi-focal lens were playing havoc or the lighting in the store was permitting me from seeing what was really printed in bold letters on the magazine cover.

But no, what I saw was really in print.

This just does not please me, and it really should not please any of my readers, either.

I grew up in an era with certain standards that were in play for publications be they newspapers or magazines.  Radio and television had strict guidelines about what was permitted for language and what was not.  It was not people being puritanical as much as just being professional.

I have always gravitated to those who used words powerfully, even when I was too young to know what the full impact meant.   Eric Sevareid comes to mind as being the first to impress me that way as a boy when he offered commentary on the CBS Evening News.  When a teenager it was William F. Buckley, Jr on Firing Line who held my attention due to his vast vocabulary and the way he marshaled words to make a point.

Today it seems that too often we allow for the low-brow among us to cheapen the way we talk, and the way our nation is viewed.

Standards are good, and there is nothing wrong with defending, or speaking out when they lapse to the point it becomes impossible to answer the question of a young person who looks at the latest cover of TV Guide and needs to inquire what does “WTF” mean.

Earlier today we spent a nice part of the afternoon at brunch with a couple who is home schooling a ten-year-old boy.  He has the conversational ability of someone years older along with good grammar all wrapped in a polite and genuine disposition.  He is not protected from the world but also is not mixed with those his age who can be often found at a mall dropping the ‘F- bomb’ with friends.  I think there is still a solid part of the country who are trying to raise kids with some foundations, but it keeps getting more difficult.

So I ask my readers which type of young person would they like to have in their midst?  The one I was with today, or the ones we all too often hear speaking with profanity in public?

If we answer, and I suspect we all do, that the young person with some sense about himself would be our choice then we also must address how we cultivate more like him.  And ponder how much more difficult it is to do when highly popular publications such as TV Guide needlessly works to undermine that mission so many parents work to achieve.