TLC's irresponsible programming: Lottery Changed My Life

Updated

A lot of people are worried about what their children see on television: sex, violence, drugs, vulgar language, etc. But one show that no child (or anyone else) should see appears on TLC of all places: Lottery Changed My Life.

The show profiles Lottery jackpot winners and what they've done with their money. Not surprising, many of the winners were living in very modest circumstances before they won -- exactly the people who could least afford to be playing the lottery and yet comprise a disproportionate percentage of the country's problem gamblers.

Lottery winners are not people who should be glorified: We should save television profiles on people who worked hard to better themselves and their children.

Maybe TLC, the channel that features such shows as Flip That House, feels a little shame itself? The show isn't mentioned on its website at all. Hmmm.

Here's a show I'd like to see on TLC: a show profiling the lives of families ruined by problem gambling, and children lacking clothes for school because their parents bought Lottery tickets instead. There are a lot more of these situations than there are jackpot winners, and that's the cost of state-sanctioned gambling that politicians need to be looking at. Maybe documentary filmmaker Jeffrey Blitz will bring us something worth watching.

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