We have seen the future
In his darkly humorous way, Carl Hiassen, has, in his recent Miami Herald article entitled We Have Seen the Future and It’s Not Pretty points up the problem with today’s “new New Journalism”.
But this is the new New Journalism, which is steered by a core belief that people would rather be smothered by seedy gossip about dead ex-Playmate junkies than be bothered with the details of North Korea’s nuclear program.Like the Don Henley song says, crap is king. We are merely here to serve . . . Not since the O.J. Simpson murder trial have so much manpower and so many resources been thrown at a story of so little ultimate consequence to society.
Scoff, if you will, at the hyperventilating TV coverage of the Smith case. You think it’s easy trying to make Anna Nicole sound important enough to justify three minutes and twenty seconds of air time? That’s a tough job, folks.
Another factor heightened the frenzy: She expired in South Florida, which in February is a dream destination for any journeyman reporter. Had Smith passed away at a Holiday Inn in Buffalo, the throng of invading media would have been much smaller — and far more eager to leave.
Now the circus shifts to Nassau, where visiting journalists face a dicey new challenge: How to conceal their windsurfing lessons and casino losses on their expense accounts.
It’s money that could be spent in pursuit of serious news in Darfur or Pakistan, or even back home where there is likely some crime and corruption waiting to be exposed.
But this is a new dawn for modern journalism. The smelly stuff that was once left to the capable vultures at the Star and The Enquirer is now front-page fodder in your hometown paper, and the lead story on the six o’clock news.
A similar point was made by David Sirota when blogging about his reaction to this weekend’s 4 part PBS Special on the current state of the Media. In commenting about the LA Times’ gutting of its foreign bureaus in order to save a few bucks, David said, “Justifying the wholesale destruction of news coverage by making blanket statements that the media is “just giving readers what they want” is a particularly hollow argument in an age where the entire media marketing industry is centered around creating mass public desires. The most successful marketing executives understand that the media is not a mirror held up to the public merely reflecting “what readers want.” Instead, the media today imparts what it wants readers and viewers to want - most often in order to maximize profit. This ain’t conspiracy theory - this is Advertising 101.”
So your local paper, or radio station,or TV Network, which is now owned by a conglomerate that owns 250 or so other local papers and radio stations and TV networks, many of them serving the same area, finds it much cheaper to push this “necro-tainment” in your face than to give you substantive news about what’s going on in Iraq, or, for that matter, what’s going on in your own backyard.
And this is what Chairman Martin of the FCC want us to have MORE of. Way to go, we all need to be dumbed down more so we don’t speak back to our Corporate Overlords . . .
Technorati Tags: Big Media, Journalism, Miami Herald, LA Times, FCC, Chairman Martin, tabloid news, Media Reform, Localism
