A CBS Reporter Receives Death Threats and Is Temporarily Forced Off the Air to Protect Her Family’s Safety
…because she did an expose on…wait for it…underage drinking in an affluent D.C. suburb.
Yeah. They were THAT pissed.
…”At first I was frightened and then I became angry,” McCarren said. “It felt like an orchestrated Facebook and Twitter campaign of hate. People put my home address on the internet. There were calls for revenge and retaliation against my family. I’m now in about my 27th year as a reporter and I have never seen anything like this. It seems like these suburban, affluent kids have simply never been told ‘no.’ They have an inflated sense of entitlement. They feel entitled to cell phones, computers, cars, and in this case, they appear to feel entitled to doing something illegal, which is drink underage of 21.”
Erica Hill remarked, “One of the most surprising parts about that backlash from the outside is the reaction that you got from parents who were equally outraged as their teenagers were.”
“One of the most memorable things, was at an underage drinking party that was busted by police, one of the parents showed up to collect his son and he said right in front of police, ‘Why didn’t you run?‘“
“Entitled”. Says it ALL. Just shocked someone has the nerve to say it.
Andrea McCarren told her story to Howard Kurtz this weekend.
Humanity...or the Lack Thereof, Media, Morality, Nanny State, People | tree hugging sister | 
February 20, 2012 5:57 pm
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Yeah, just what we need, a bunch of teen aged alcoholics, ready to hit the workforce. NOT.
Way to go, parents. I hope you have a trust fund set up, otherwise a lot of these kids are likely to end up living in your basement.
The point is not the underaged drinking,it’s her being a snitch and filming purchases to make a name for herself.
We all bought alcohol from ghetto stores that never checked IDs in the 60s and 70s.
In Europe 16 year-olds can drink.One can join the army and fight at 18, they should be able to buy, at least, beer and wine,maybe not the hard stuff.
Greg, you’re endorsing thuggish behavior by a bunch of spoiled brats and their very stupid parents. Moral equivalency is a large part of why this country is sliding downhill, and your attitude is not helping.
And who cares what we did as kids? Underage drinking was illegal back then. If we got caught (and some of us DID get caught), we paid the price for breaking the law. We did not intimidate news reporters.
Which is exactly what THS is pointing out here. Such behavior is unacceptable REGARDLESS of the reason. The fact that TEENAGERS and their PARENTS are behaving like the SEIU at a Tea Party rally is outrageous.
Also, we are not in Europe. They have a long standing tradition of breaking children in early on booze, for reasons that have nothing to do with booze. And everything to do with a poor supply of potable water in most of the continent.
What TRJ said.
Affluent D.C. suburb=government managerial/lobbyist class.
“The point is not the underaged drinking,it’s her being a snitch and filming purchases to make a name for herself.”
I don’t know how to break this to you Greg but Andrea McCarren is a reporter which means it is her job to REPORT.
Snitch?
Seriously?
What the hell have you been drinking?
I don’t condone the behavior of these kids or parents in the slightest. That said, they are partly motivated not just by entitlement but by fear, fear of a “bad record” and not getting into a top college that will solidify their New Class managerial status. The penalties for underage law breaking re drinking and drugs have become quite stiff, perhaps disproportionate to the offense. Getting bad publicity and a juvenile record will keep you out of Georgetown or Harvard. That is what a lot of this is about. This is why these ambitious helicopter parents are so upset.
Cops around here make a good living busting up kids’ drinking parties. They’re at the young and stupid age but at least they’re not threatening anyone harm. So far.
Sue, the penalties have become greater because adolescents (naturally so) will not moderate their behaviour without compulsion and their parents have abandoned their duty to compel correct behaviour. When the state assumes responsibility because of the dereliction of the citizenry, it’s a bit much to expect finesse.
The laws limiting legal drinking to 21 are actually nonsensical. One could argue that they have exacerbated the party culture they were ostensibly designed to squelch.
That being said – they are laws. They’ve stood for longer than any of these kids have been alive. And if they want to be daring and stand up for liberty and a beer at 19, because they are adults, then they can also stand for taking their lumps like adults and paying the price if they’re busted.
Trying to threaten the reporter who dimed them out is BS. The next step is trying to threaten the cops and judges and juries – and it’s not a big step either.
Sorry for creating such a fuss.
But, come on, the lack of potable is why people drink
alcohol in Europe?That’s a new one on me.
That’s the origin of it, Greg, going back as recently as the mid 19th century. The water supply was so foul and polluted that the only “safe” beverage was booze. Look at the cholera epidemics in England and other places.
American has always had a strange relationship to alcohol. We are the homeland of Carrie Nation and Prohibition. As P.J. O’Rourke once said, we are the country that works ourselves into a screaming fit of Puritanism and then goes home and takes a pill to recover.
Another thought inspired by PJ O’Rourke: equality before the law is a vital ideal, but we have a two tier system for juvenile offenses. Poor black kids caught with drugs go to jail; middle class white kids have a “problem” and get “treatment.” The kids and parents in this instance probably don’t see themselves as indulging in criminal behavior (even though they are). The difference between “crime” and “youthful indiscretion” should not depend on your family’s financial or social status. But all too often, it does.