To the powers that be at CNN …

Shut the f*ck up already.  Really.  Your incessant repetition of nothing is so getting on my nerves.  The endless speculation that goes nowhere.  The constant questions.  The meaningless questions.  The ever-growing stream of ‘experts’ who have no answers because there are no answers.  Your relentless prying and probing and the never-ending exploitation of people’s sadness and grief.  Please.  Stop.

Enough already.  Give it a rest.

It’s bad enough when there’s a snowstorm and your poor, unfortunate, frost-bitten reporters are sent hither, thither and yon to freeze their asses off, so you can keep tabs on how high the snow drifts are.  Or when a plane goes down.

You just can’t get enough of the gory details.  Over and over and over and over again you ask what it must have been like to be a passenger on that plane as it spun out of control and it became apparent death was inevitable.  You won’t be satisfied until we can almost see the looks of panic and excruciating pain on their faces.  Until we can almost hear the screams and the cries and the shouts and the hysteria and then the dead silence in that cabin.  Until we can almost feel the impact as the doomed aircraft hits the water.  Until our own hearts start to pound heavily in our chests.  And then you can’t wait to show us the destruction and the debris and the mangled pieces of fuselage and the hoards of waiting, wailing relatives.

Never do you think of what all this ‘news’ does to the grieving families of those unfortunate souls who have lost their lives.  You are that insensitive, that ignorant and that greedy for ratings and the riches that come with them.

But nowhere is it worse than in your unrelenting reporting of the horrific terrorist attacks that continue to come without warning or reason in city after city, in country after country, day after day, week after week, month after month.  And nowhere is it more damaging or hurtful either.  Or, in my opinion, more dangerous.

Don’t you realize you are giving ISIS and Al Qaeda and home-grown, self-radicalized terrorists and terrorists in the making and all those who hate everybody who isn’t as sick and twisted as they are exactly what they want?

You are making them famous.  You are giving them millions and millions of dollars worth of free publicity.  Free advertising. You are helping them deliver their demented messages around the globe.  You are telling the world they’ve succeeded, that they’ve cut off more heads, that they’ve shot more innocent people, that they’ve bombed more cites and towns and villages, that they’ve left us with more carnage, that they’ve blindsided us all yet again, that we never saw it coming, that they’re winning.

All of which gives them credibility.  And power.

And you’re doing it twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, on the hour, every hour.  Anchor after anchor.  Guest after guest.  Eye witness after eye witness.  Map after map.  Police chase after police chase.  Shoot out after shoot out.  Bloody scene after bloody scene.  Vigil after vigil.

What’s wrong with you?  Why can’t you see the damage you’re doing?

Do the families of all those victims really need to be reminded of the anguish and pain and fear they’ve been going through?  Do they really need to be reminded that their loved ones have been imprisoned or decapitated or set on fire or tortured?  Do they really need to see photos of them on their knees, hands bound behind their backs, helpless and about to die needlessly, again and again and again and again until those awful images are burned into their very souls?  Do they really need to keep hearing the shots that killed their loved ones ringing out, once, twice, three times, six times in a row, one after the other, to see people running frantically, in every direction, trying to escape alive?

Have you no shame?  Have you no decency?  Have you no conscience?  And frankly, have you no brains?

Because at the very same time you’re being insensitive and tasteless and ghoulish, you’re also talking about how vulnerable we are in the western world, how we’re scrambling to keep up, how inept we are at identifying and monitoring those who present risks to our safety, even when they live in our local communities and are known to law enforcement.

You show coverage of how airports are not screening their employees properly.  How lacking our security measures are, everywhere.  How we can’t keep up with the number of terrorists infiltrating our borders, how we don’t have either the manpower or financial resources to do the job properly, how we really don’t know who they are or where they come from or whether or not they’re American, Canadian, French and Danish citizens or where they’ll strike next or what kind of weapons they’ll use.  Essentially you’re telling them, in living colour, all day and all night just what sitting ducks we are.

Be quiet for God sake!  Stop all coverage of these events.  All networks, all media, should go silent on terrorism.  Nothing should be reported.  Nothing.  Not one word.  Don’t show them they succeeded, again.  Let these monsters live and die in total obscurity, out of the limelight they so crave.  Refuse to allow them to admire their handiwork through our news stories.   Refuse to allow them to glory in our misery.  Refuse to let them triumph over the scenes of our confusion and our tears and our fear and our anger and our helplessness and our losses.  Refuse to let them use our “breaking news” to recruit more evil.

Fade to black and stay there.

Torture them with silence and anonymity.

Hush now!