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The hardships of teenage life were featured by CBS and ABC. ABC's Nancy Cordes speculated that the warning labels on anti-depressants that the pills sometimes lead to suicidal thoughts has deterred some psychiatrists from prescribing medication to their depressed teen patients: "The warnings led to a 20% drop in anti-depressant usage among those under 18." In the darkest of ironies, lacking medication, more teens may now be killing themselves. The suicide rate spiked in 2004, the very year that the labels were introduced.
CBS' Daniel Sieberg reported on a survey in Pediatrics magazine that found that 34% of teenagers and older pre-teens accidentally stumble across pornography online by "clicking on a pop-up ad or a spam e-mail message or simply misspelling a Website." He called this type of smut "ambush porn." Sieberg did not offer an estimate of how many find their pornography on purpose. Maybe that is the remaining 66%.
What were the copy editors thinking when they allowed anchor Katie Couric to offer her misleading introduction to Sieberg's report? Referring to that 34% statistic, she said "nearly half of our kids are being ambushed by obscene Websites." Not only is one third considerably less than "nearly half" but the survey also asked no children under ten about their experiences, an age group where most of "our kids" are to be found.
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