In 2005, Katie Couric touched upon the topic our parents have dreaded bringing up, but something everyone wants to know. In her special Couric brings together various teens and their parents where they all sit down and talk about sex. She asks the questions that most parents wonder, but never ask. Teens are invited to discuss sex in their lives and what outer influences effect their decisions. Parents are also allowed to address the issue of sex in their teens lives and what they think. If you watch the video and read the article you will hear and see a wide range of opinions from both parents and teens.
For me, I remember viewing this special as a Sophomore in High School and thinking that Couric was genius for running this special. Never before have I ever seen anything like this on T.V that took a neutral stance and had a balance of opinions from teens and parents. It was controversial, but almost necessary for todays generation to discuss. Sex has always been seen as "taboo" in the U.S but more and more teens are engaging in sex at younger ages. Many parents don't understand because their generation was not as sexually active as todays.
I think that Couric did a great job as a journalist with this issue and covered the topic appropriately.
2 comments:
I totally agree that speaking about it helps. It is always awkard to talk about it with your parents,but not speaking about is even worse. I mean is it worse to have an awkard discussion or to have an STD? Of course you can learn through different ways, but without telling everything, they can help you with their experience. By having a fair amount of teens and parents, I think it helps the journalist cover it appropriately.
Can you say how controversial it was? What part of the discussion made it controversial? That could be interesting to see what the media saw as "controversial" and what part they saw as ok.
Of course, I always try to bring the subject around to feature writing. A sex educator would be a fascinating person to profile because so much harm is done by unwanted pregnancy and disease, and tension exists between those who would inform about ways to have sex responsibly (as did Couric in her role as journalist) and those who promote abstinence education, which is particularly controversial because research suggests it doesn't work.
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