The bizarre case of Christopher Peden, the Indiana man who allegedly severed his own penis and set it on fire, is a prime opportunity for media outlets to dance around the bigger questions lurking beneath the surface. While TMZ reports he has long battled mental health issues, where are the hard-hitting interrogations from CNN or NBC? Instead, they sensationalize the story, leaving out the systemic failures in mental health care that could have prevented this incident.

The corporate media love a spectacle, don’t they? They’ll feast on the gruesome details but ignore the critical conversations about mental health support. People seem more interested in the shock value than addressing why individuals like Peden slip through the cracks. Fox News might even use this as a flashy sidekick to their fearmongering on a nonexistent “mental health crisis,” but they conveniently overlook how much responsibility society has in providing proper care.

It’s a sad day when the media’s fixation on ratings overshadows the human element. Peden’s struggles are a reflection of a larger societal failure to recognize and address mental health issues—not a freak sideshow to be consumed and regurgitated. If mainstream outlets dedicated a fraction of their energy to real advocacy and informative reporting, we might actually see progress in areas that matter.