Media should spare young prodigies_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

Media should spare young prodigies

When publishing the story, the newspaper highlighted the bits on dating in both the sub-headlines and in the text. So did most Internet websites which carried the report.

My question is: Is it necessary, and proper, for the reporter to ask an underage girl such a question? And why did the media outlets accentuate this part of the interview while there were so many other questions the readers may be more interested in about the child prodigy?

The answer is apparent: To attract more readers and increase the hit rates, newspapers and websites go for headlines involving romance and sex. It is understandable for media outlets to try to draw as much attention as possible, but it is too much, and disgusting, for them to cast their lascivious eyes at a 14-year-old girl.

I am not wronging them by singling out these two examples. I can give another example. Again a new recruit of Tsinghua University, 25-year-old Li Jun had made eight attempts at passing the annual national college entrance examination before finally making it into Tsinghua. The aforementioned Beijing newspaper also interviewed Li but did not say a single word about the new student's romance or marriage, though twenty-five is the prime age for such a topic. The reason is simple: Li is a he, not a she.

Nowadays, there is too much information about sex hitting our eyes and ears. Its influence on children is disastrous, because they are not in the least insulated from it. A recent survey conducted in Foshan, Guangdong province found that the youngest child who had had sex was 12 years old and 34.5 percent of senior high school students had "intimate boy/girl friends." Teenage pregnancy has become something that people do not fuss about.