The media and the news

[Erythritol]

I'm an avid reader of CNN.com (I'm too cheap to buy newspapers), and it seems as though the news has slowly turned into a source of entertainment. Everyone you turn, you can't help but hearing about Paris's stint in jail or Lindsay's trip to rehab, yet it seems as though few people actually know what is happening in the world. To me, one of the most important things is to be well-informed of global events. Yet the media gives attention to sensational stories or stories involving celebrities. We all know if So-and-So in Hollywood gets a face-lift, but if there's an earthquake half-way around the world that kills upwards of 800, it's a small blurb barely worth mentioning. I had something like that happen to me: I was on CNN.com and one of the main stories was something stupid and frivolous. I then went to Wikipedia and in the little "current news" box there were two bulletins. One mentioned an earthwake that killed approximately 800 people, and the other mentioned terrorist attacks in Iraq that killed around the same amount of people and injured about 1000. There are terrorist attacks that kill people in different nations seemingly every week, and it never makes news. Yet it seemed as though the world had to stop for 9/11 (though I'm not saying that didn't deserve considerable media coverage). Another example: Darfur. It took FOREVER for the media to finally pick up on the genocide in Darfur.

Another thing that bothers me is the rather ethnocentric bias in the media. The example I have may be a bit controversial, but here goes.....everyone has probably heard about the three year old British girl who disappeared in Portugal. It was all over the news for weeks, and she even made the front page of People magazine. Yes, it was very sad, but I honestly don't think it deserved so much media focus. Many kids go missing every day, but they don't make the cover of People. If a really cute little (rich) white girl goes missing, its all over the news. There are child soldiers in Darfur, children dying in Iraq due to terrorism, and child prostitutes all over the world (to name a few things), yet these things don't really get news coverage.

Honestly, I wish the media would clean itself up and take journalism seriously. The news should contain news. The news should not have to be concerned about "entertaining" people. What do you guys think?

 

[Rockman X]

Me and my mom always complain about this issue all the time, which is made more interesting by the fact that my dad is addicted to the "news" as bad as he is coffee.

News isn't about delivering worthwhile stories and informing people of stuff they need to know, it's all about ratings. At least once a month, usually more, I see some story about animal cruelty, like someone beat up a puppy or raised pit bulls to fight. Well ZOMG, SOMEONE LIT A PUPPY ON FIREZ (that was an actual story a few weeks ago), yes that sucks and it's cruel of the person. But you know what? A puppy is inconsequential and trivial compared to all the other crap going on in the world.

They pick and choose stories so that they can get the most "awwww" or "raaawrg" responses. Doesn't matter if it's the most frivolous thing in the world, if it gets people riled up or anything else that will get them to look up from their plates for more than 5 seconds, they'll take the story and milk it for all it's worth. They'll frigging follow idiotic stories for weeks, but if you go online and dig around you'll find much more important stories.

And the funny thing is, it only seems to be America that does this crap. Try reading BBC or another news site. Yeah, they have frivolous crap, but they actually mention stories from other countries too.

 

[Jehanne]

I don't think that this is a recent trend. I suspect that it's been declining this way for quite a while (decades, maybe). There's a feedback loop on this situation --- the more sensational the news is, the more hits there are (or newspapers and magazines purchased).

It's all about money, when it comes down to it.

 

[Warbsywoo]

Which is at the same time a boon and a bane in terms of people being informed about things with consequence.

Yeah, I agree with all of you. They seem to pick the ones that are trivial most of the time, and they fail to deliver bigger news. Sure, they may be snippets about the 'Invisible Children' and stuff like that but the fact is, there's not a lot of time devoted to it.

Celebrities in Headline News is just plain stupid. We already have all the countless other 'entertainment news' shows out there on many local programs, so why even sneak them in to the big house?

 

[Jehanne]

For cnn.com specifically, I have a suspicion that they're using an algorithm to decide what articles get listed higher up on the page. Something related to the number of hits.

If that's true, then we're definitely just doing this to ourselves.

We should all be ashamed!

 

[Warbsywoo]

Eh, I suppose it could help. They infuse us with so much tripe that we might at least glean some semblance of information from the many 'CELEBRITY ARREST' or 'SO-AND-SO MARRIED IN FRANCE!' and all that other stuff....[/sarcastic]

I've personally felt that most of the kids of our school actually do know that there is a war in Iraq (to cite an example) but most kids don't even know where to point the finger when asked to find where Iraq is. I even heard a couple say that Bush is still pretty popular, lol.
Eh, it could be that they just can't be arsed to watch it, but with the little time a week that they actually could, they're not actually getting informed on the big stuff. Make sense? xD

 

[Rockman X]

Well what about ratings on the shows themselves? I'm sure they monitor those...so yet again, by tuning in we're only doing it to ourselves.

 

[Warbsywoo]

True, but either we can't help it 'cause we're craving for at least something to watch on TV, or we just find it generally entertaining. Either way, it's a win-win situation for them. xD

 

[Jehanne]

I would like to think that we have the will power to make our society better. Overcome these natural tendencies. I don't think it will come to that, though; most likely we'll just continue our downward spiral to idiocracy.

 

[Rockman X]

True, but either we can't help it 'cause we're craving for at least something to watch on TV, or we just find it generally entertaining. Either way, it's a win-win situation for them. xD

There's other stuff on the TV than the news. Hell, people don't even need the TV with teh internetz now.

I would like to think that we have the will power to make our society better. Overcome these natural tendencies. I don't think it will come to that, though; most likely we'll just continue our downward spiral to idiocracy.

People don't have the willpower. Why do you think 2/3 of America is overweight?

 

[eisprinz]

We're all headed down a bad road because of what the media is doing. Remember Aldous Huxley's Brave New World? Much more eerie and predicative than 1984, in my opinion.

Basically, because we would rather indulge in pleasures, we don't care to know about anything wrong that might be going on.

 

[Rockman X]

In an interview with Serj Tankian (I can't remember which interview it was, there are too many) the interviewer is asking Serj what he thought of the media and such. Serj was saying how he owned a TV set but didn't have it hooked up to cable or anything, all he used it for was DVDs, and that he would rather get on the internet and look up news on things he was interested in than watch programmed crap the media wants you to see. I made sure to write down this one quote he said:

"Fear sells. It makes you stay at home and buy a lot of canned foods."