6'9'' Brazilian Girl: All CBS Has to Say on the Matter is that She Ought to Be A Model

Above you will find CBS's coverage of a 6'9'' fourteen year old girl who lives in Brazil. She suffers from Gigantism which is "abnormally large growth due to an excess of growth hormone during childhood, before the bone growth plates have closed." The CBS reporter glosses over her health problems to fawn over her super-statuesque beauty. She is a beautiful girl, but she needs treatment that her parents can't afford. For comparison, see a report from a Brazilian station (btw, I saw both of these clips on Jezebel).



Although this piece also pays attention to you aspiration to model, it also focuses on her inability to go to school and they interview a doctor on her condition. Very different reporting standards: the American, sensational or "weird story of the week" and the Brazilian one, "health conditions, lack of schooling and lack of treatment options for the poor."

It makes you wonder what other feature stories we see on American "news" that might have a very different tone if the focus wasn't the "entertainment value" of news, but actually...delivering "the news."

Also, I hope that these reports will at least get this girl some healthcare and drugs to stop her out of control growth hormones. Remember, she's only 14, she's still a growing girl.