golden voice

The Ted Williams story says something interesting about this world.

Background here.  He is the homeless man with a drug addiction and a "golden voice" who was discovered and subsequently offered jobs by MSNBC, Kraft foods, and an NBA basketball team.  Articles about the man were everywhere.  It was the feel good story of the year.

Since then the news has been nonexistent.  It turns out he started drinking again, checked into rehab, and recently left before the program was over.

These kinds of stories are quite common.  Almost every year some selfless person saves someone who has fallen onto the subway tracks in NY.  They meet with the governor and there are articles in every news outlet and calls for funds to be set up and streets or days to be named after the person.  Jobs are offered.  Lifetime supplies of this and that are offered.

The media establishment driven by our general love of feel-good stories eats this stuff up.  But we also have short attention spans and don't like to hear failure and bad news.  Hence the media hasn't really talked much about what has happened since.  And through all of this no one thought that maybe this guy might be better just dealing with his drug addiction.  No fund will be set up now that he's a "failure".  No streets or days named after him.  The jobs will probably be revoked quietly.  And no news articles either.