I'm in one of those moods
....where I can't shut up! Luckily for me, I have this blog to get it all these thoughts down on paper. Unfortunately, for you, well it can be unfortunate!
I've been reading at work again....I've been catching up on all the current events and the news, which usually triggers me to think...which leads me to writing it down. So here I am, thinking....writing.
Here's what I have to say about the media at the moment....
OK, so people are fascinated with knowing ALL the information there is to know. It's as simple as that. If you tell someone a tiny bit of information, a question will follow and probably more than just one. We live in a society where today's news is yesterday's news in a matter of minutes. With the technology available, the resources available to get the most up to date news, and the monster ratings that the media is scoring today...it's really hard to live in this world and be affected by something for more than a minute. Even a huge story, one that will get an unbelievable amount of coverage only lasts until the public says so. Once we are no longer interested, the media will no longer cover it. It's sad and kind of scary to think that a 12 year old today can tell you stories about murder with no emotion. They are simply facts and just a part of that child's life. Big events like hurricanes or other weather related disasters is a terrible burden for anyone directly affected. People want to help, people want to be a part of the story in the beginning. But once the coverage starts to fade, the interest starts to fade but everything's just the same. People's homes and lives were not corrected because the media stopped covering the story. Those same people's lives were put on hold or were ruined even. I don't think that having all of this information at hand is necessarily a bad thing either. There is still good news in the world and good news to tell. Even the bad news obviously deserves it's platform. I think the problem is in the ways it's processed. 20 years ago I can remember watching the Challenger launch on television. I was at school and our teachers let us watch it on TV because one of the astronauts was a teacher. I think I was in the second grade at the time. When it exploded, the teachers turned the TV off immediately, some of them broke down into tears, others just tried to change the subject...like they didn't want to be the ones responsible for showing us that tragic moment in history. I remember a feeling of guilt, as if I had witnessed something bad and I was going to be in trouble for it. And even though everyone pretended to move on with the day at school, I remember it was all I could think about. I don't know what the news coverage would be like covering a similar event, in a second grade classroom today, but I imagine it to be much different for some reason. I don't think people have the same attention spans that they did back then. With a 24 hour news cycle, advertising and public relations seem to have become an invisible cloak that we've wrapped around our failings. Sales is what drives our country and fuels the need for success. The media was once just a source of information and now they are competing in a world against other sources of information to sell the best delivered package because the better the package, the better the ratings and the better the paycheck...blah blah blah. We are taught that if you find your message and repeat, repeat, repeat. Stick to the words - If you say it enough you can sell anything. Once you become aware of the sales pitch, you see it everywhere. We are so concerned with failure and making money, the reality of what is actually being covered has been lost and we've become so completely distracted with how the story is being told, there's nothing left to do but move onto the next big story. I don't mind seeing imperfections or hearing someone own up to their mistakes. I mind being sold a lie, or being misguided from the truth because we don't like having it pointed out to us or the package it's presented in isn't so pretty. No one is surprised anymore by failures that cost lives, like the Challenger did.
I've been reading at work again....I've been catching up on all the current events and the news, which usually triggers me to think...which leads me to writing it down. So here I am, thinking....writing.
Here's what I have to say about the media at the moment....
OK, so people are fascinated with knowing ALL the information there is to know. It's as simple as that. If you tell someone a tiny bit of information, a question will follow and probably more than just one. We live in a society where today's news is yesterday's news in a matter of minutes. With the technology available, the resources available to get the most up to date news, and the monster ratings that the media is scoring today...it's really hard to live in this world and be affected by something for more than a minute. Even a huge story, one that will get an unbelievable amount of coverage only lasts until the public says so. Once we are no longer interested, the media will no longer cover it. It's sad and kind of scary to think that a 12 year old today can tell you stories about murder with no emotion. They are simply facts and just a part of that child's life. Big events like hurricanes or other weather related disasters is a terrible burden for anyone directly affected. People want to help, people want to be a part of the story in the beginning. But once the coverage starts to fade, the interest starts to fade but everything's just the same. People's homes and lives were not corrected because the media stopped covering the story. Those same people's lives were put on hold or were ruined even. I don't think that having all of this information at hand is necessarily a bad thing either. There is still good news in the world and good news to tell. Even the bad news obviously deserves it's platform. I think the problem is in the ways it's processed. 20 years ago I can remember watching the Challenger launch on television. I was at school and our teachers let us watch it on TV because one of the astronauts was a teacher. I think I was in the second grade at the time. When it exploded, the teachers turned the TV off immediately, some of them broke down into tears, others just tried to change the subject...like they didn't want to be the ones responsible for showing us that tragic moment in history. I remember a feeling of guilt, as if I had witnessed something bad and I was going to be in trouble for it. And even though everyone pretended to move on with the day at school, I remember it was all I could think about. I don't know what the news coverage would be like covering a similar event, in a second grade classroom today, but I imagine it to be much different for some reason. I don't think people have the same attention spans that they did back then. With a 24 hour news cycle, advertising and public relations seem to have become an invisible cloak that we've wrapped around our failings. Sales is what drives our country and fuels the need for success. The media was once just a source of information and now they are competing in a world against other sources of information to sell the best delivered package because the better the package, the better the ratings and the better the paycheck...blah blah blah. We are taught that if you find your message and repeat, repeat, repeat. Stick to the words - If you say it enough you can sell anything. Once you become aware of the sales pitch, you see it everywhere. We are so concerned with failure and making money, the reality of what is actually being covered has been lost and we've become so completely distracted with how the story is being told, there's nothing left to do but move onto the next big story. I don't mind seeing imperfections or hearing someone own up to their mistakes. I mind being sold a lie, or being misguided from the truth because we don't like having it pointed out to us or the package it's presented in isn't so pretty. No one is surprised anymore by failures that cost lives, like the Challenger did.
posted by ROBIN at 7:37 PM
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