More Fluff for the Kids

Newsweek ran an article titled "The Teen Drinking Dilemna" (in print edition, I have yet to find it online).

Rules of real (versus fluff) journalism broken (yes, admittedly my rules from reading journalism, never seriously studying it, but really, aren't the readers relevant?)aka, written as if factual or relevant, when that’s really questionable:
1. Article begins with an anecdote from 2002, five years old, as a starting rationale for their publishing on this topic.

2. A graph charting what percentage of 15-16 year olds had x occasions of 'binge' drinking during a 30 day period without a) their definition of binge drinking and b) not connecting it directly to possible health problems.
"Experts" often describe binge drinking as having a given number of drinks, usually 4-5, per 'occasion', which given enough food and time span for consumption, does not even necessarily lead to a frightening level of inebriation. And even engaging in such behavior as often as once a weekend does not necessarily impair someone's educational or social life.

3. Uses same chart to say “Contrary to popular belief, underage drinking is a bigger problem in Europe than in the US,” and to state that France has the highest rate of cirrhosis of the liver as definitive evidence that lower drinking ages fail to prevent 'bad' drinking, and not considering the gallons of wine that the French drink.

4. Contrasts a family that discusses drinking and allows responsible drinking with meals against parents who give their kids alcohol “cuz they’ll just get it anyway,” as the only two options, and because the second family exists, the first one must just be lucky enough to not have their kids rushed to the ER, and aren’t a viable answer to the question of what to do.

Newsweek wanted to write an article to scare parents away from giving their kids five kegs for their graduation parties.

I’ll accept that advice without buying into any single one of the reasons they give.

The problem with underage drinking is because of our culture that expects their children to somehow magically learn about how alcohol works in the body at 11:59pm on their last minute of being 20 years old, without ever talking about it publicly and honestly
You shouldn’t buy unlimited alcohol for your kids’ party, because even if you raised them to be responsible drinkers, you are not their friends’ parents, and unless you plan to have a pre-party educational session (not a bad idea) and actually monitor them, you potentially set your own children up to be knowledgeable and for the rest to pass out in pools of their own vomit.

If, instead, we all raised our children to learn how to use alcohol responsibly (and not necessarily excluding “fun” with alcohol), then they would all know how to avoid falling asleep in their own vomit.
And some random statistic on cirrhosis does not disprove this theory.