Sometimes it's frustrating to watch the news -- and not just for reporters--to--be like myself. For example, don't you hate it when you flip on the tube and have to wait up to five minutes before hearing the latest on the battle to remove Terry Schiavo's feeding tube? Or how about the drudgery of watching CNN or Fox News and having to wait six whole minutes to find out if Michael Jackson wore pajamas to court again? Does it bug you when columnists are sarcastic?
Since the advent of the printing press, the media has been in position to influence public opinion. Not only can this important power influence what people think, but it extends also to which topics are worth knowing about in the first place. This is an immense responsibility and the national media has a habit of obsessing over particular stories to the exclusion of others.
For example, we can all agree that the murder of Laci Peterson and her unborn son were tragic. But in a typical year, almost 200 people will be killed in the Oakland--San Francisco area (where Peterson's body was dumped), according to the Associated Press. Were the Peterson deaths so much more meaningful that their aftermath warranted 27 months of almost continuous national coverage while virtually no mention of the other victims was to be heard outside Oakland and San Francisco?
Don't misunderstand, I'm not saying individual stories of suffering are unimportant. On the contrary, the media's job is to inform the public, and local news outlets have an indisputable duty to report on them. For instance, if the Daily News had failed to feverishly cover the tragic deaths of students Karl Harford and Michael McKinney, they would indisputably have failed the community.
However, on the national scale, media also fail the audience when they become so addicted to one story that other important stories are missed. What about those 200 other murder victims where Laci Peterson was found? It's strange that we didn't hear much about murders in California being up 11 percent in 2002, or that the same year, nationwide violent crimes were at their lowest in three decades (that last stat is from CBS News, but the documents check out). The 36 million Americans living in poverty might also be worth discussion. Or is there not enough of a hook on that one?
A similar mass media travesty is the manufactured crisis. The Summer of 2001 was billed as the "Summer of the Sharks" (cue spooky music). Seemingly every day that summer, there was a story about another shark attack. This, of course, spurred stories on what was making all the sharks go nuts and attack people. Eventually the cause was found: There really wasn't any new information. Shark attacks nationwide were actually down for the year, and were just being covered like never before! Why all the extra attention? Because after reporting on the first shark attacks, the media smelled interest (read "fear") and ran with it. Perception is reality as they say.
Inevitably some undeserving stories are going to have "legs" and be around longer than they might otherwise deserve simply because they grab the public interest. That's natural, and you have to give the audience what they want (though, far too often, I suspect such interest is generated by incessant coverage). But the media, in all its various forms and splendor, have a responsibility to keep things in perspective, and it's something we all too often fail to do.
Write to Jake at
jymoore@bsu.edu
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