It is once again time to jump up on my beloved soap box. Today’s hectoring session regards the treatment of celebrities in the press of late. I’m not counting Filthy Filner – he’s just sleazy.

What I am talking about is the cruel treatment of celebrities with substance problems and mental health issues. The press delights in howling at the failings and foibles of performers who can’t handle their lives due to drugs, alcohol, or mental health problems. Very rarely will a full month go by without some poor character being dragged across the television screen on their way to jail or rehab.

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Some of the headlines and song parodies this brings out are rather clever. But they are all ultimately cruel. I admit I laugh on occasion when I see this stuff, but then I regret it all the more. There is something horrible about what the press does just to sell another ad at the expense of a lost soul.

The recent drunk driving arrest of David Cassidy is a great example. The pictures that accompanied the arrest were either the booking photo or a picture of him as he appeared on The Partridge Family. David has been around a long time and has his share of demons to fight. I don’t know how anyone with his past could remain level without the help of God on an hourly basis. Incredible pressure as his youth expired, temptation of every sort, drugs and alcohol at his beck and call. After the end of his teen glory years (brought on, in large part, by the death of a young fan in 1974) he struggled to just make a place in life.

David is a guy with a good voice. He had those Tiger Beat looks as a teenager and a stage presence that most performers would kill to get. He still sings well as he makes his way from casino to casino in pursuit of his career. But he can’t drink. He does. He shouldn’t drink and drive. He does.

Now he’s faced with a felony charge in New York for repeating the offense.

What does the press do? It revels in the destruction of this man. If David was a child molester, fine. Laugh it up. I’ll join right in on the fun. But he’s just a guy with a drinking problem who needs treatment and prayers.

The list of people we destroy in the media is long and awful. It will only stop when we quit buying the premise that that’s how you sell papers or advertising. Report the news but give it some sort of balance. Does the arrest of a singer for drunken driving rate more attention than the hundreds of murders in Chicago this year? Let’s pick one of those innocent kids caught in the crossfire and dedicate a small percentage of the ink to talking about controlling the rampant gang violence that caused the death.

Well, nice thought, but you won’t see it on the cover of the gossip rags at the checkout stand.

In the meantime, please say a prayer for the next one of those celebrities you see doing the perp walk. They need the help. And it will make me, and probably you as well, a better person for thinking of them as a man or woman with a need for prayer rather than a fallen star.

Finally, a little early Cassidy to rock you out.

And a more current video.

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