Over the weekend, there was a record-setting event that's going to help a great many people. Over the weekend, there was an event that got a ridiculous amount of news coverage. Not surprisingly, they weren't the same event.
In State College, Penn State's annual Dance Marathon raised $10.68M for the Four Diamonds Foundation which supports pediatric cancer research. The dance marathon, THON for short, is the world's largest student-run philanthropy. The fact that it raised more than a million dollars more than last year, setting a record in the process, would be noteworthy in itself. That it came in the wake of the sex-abuse scandal that's shaken the university and its alumni so deeply makes it more so. As someone who's spent the last few months dreading the sight of network reporters broadcasting from Old Main, seeing this all over the news would have been a nice counter-balance to show the world what alumni like myself have always known, Penn State stands for a lot more than football.
Apparently, they couldn't spare the airtime to discuss that 46-hour event, because over in Newark, New Jersey there was a four hour memorial to the late Whitney Houston. I certainly appreciate that Houston was a popular talented singer whose life her friends and family would want to celebrate. However, the spectacle of Houston's coffin being carried out of the church while her rendition of "I Will Always Love You" played just seemed creepy to me. Seeing the networks show it repeatedly made me wonder if they really couldn't find something better to show, something like hundreds of college students fighting to stay on their feet non-stop for two days to help children they don't even know. Presumably, it's a lot easier for an event to make the news when its soundtrack is topping the iTunes chart.
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