There's no "we" in "us"

My youngest (in kindergarten) had some homework the other day in which he was supposed to find his week's words in use in magazines, newspapers, etc, cut them out and paste them on a sheet of paper. His words were simple words like "we," "be" and "it." I was helping him scout words. I would find a page with one of the words and then he'd have to find the actual word on the page.

He had to find at least three occurrences of each of his words. The be and it came fairly fast, but the we was a little more elusive. OK, a lot more elusive. Yeah, most people would leave it at "Wow. The we is really hard to find." Not me. I took it as an excuse to analyze the state of mind of the media out there today :-)

Why is it that they always write articles about "They did this," or "You should do that." Nowadays especially, we are all in this together. But the voice on the page never says "We need to do this to get through this," or "We believe..." It's as if the writers is sitting on some ivory pedestal looking down at us wee-folk and all of our problems, and saying "Been there, done that, now here's what you need to do." Come on! They lost 40%+ of their retirement too! They are concerned about their job security too! They have friends and family that need their help too! Someone that they know is overseas trying to stay alive! They have hopes and ambitions too! They're clipping coupons and trying to stretch their paycheck just a little more too! They are playing and living with their children too! They love someone too! Why no empathy? Is it too weak to show that they're human? That they really could pass some Turing test with flying colors? Can they not associate with readers?!

Think about it the next time you read an article, or a book, or an advertisement. I think that WE need to really think about their motives.