Jackson death's coverage hints at scary future for the media
Post by Skylar Gremillion —
In the days following Michael Jackson’s death, glad-faced news personalities stood on their soap boxes and constantly made reference to the egregious amount of news coverage the post-death drama received.
I’ll agree that the news coverage of the Michael Jackson death procession is getting pretty ridiculous. But instead of complaining about it and returning to our ADD news cycle, we need to sit down and question what about our collective identity makes us so prone to accepting it.
Everyone from Jon Stewart to Anderson Cooper has been calling for an end to the Jackson coverage and a return to regular news. But is that any better than the Jackson coverage?
Our news cycle moves so fast that most people don’t have the time to sit down and think about what any of our national news even means.
Several talking heads have pointed out how the Jackson circus has attracted attention away from the affair of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford — that’s true, but what’s left of that story for CNN or MSNBC? Are they going to squeeze another week or two of constant coverage out of it?
Nobody is going to talk about what effect the news cycle or the media may have had on his rise to fame, or the way this is being handled.
Instead of legitimate discussion or a candid interview, Glenn Beck will cry on camera and get one step closer to Jimmy Swaggert. Then maybe Nancy Grace can yell and scream about the lack of morals demonstrated by our leaders while constantly looping footage of Jackson’s body being wheeled into the morgue.
Nobody says anything because the people we are listening to are part of the problem.
These media personalities are now bigger than the news, and it is subservient to their opinion.
Talking heads spew bite size pieces of opinion disguised as news or facts and sensationalize everything.
Honestly Cooper and Stewart aren’t any different. At least Stewart knows it’s comedy.
It’s not going to get any slower either.
Twitter, Facebook and cable news all push a fast-paced agenda that encourages us to consume everything as quickly as possible.
In my book, the best thing we can do is talk about it with each other.
Very little real dialogue has ever happened on TV. That goes for individuals as well as cultures.
Asking friends and family how they feel about issues is a great beginning — just getting people to think about things critically and outside of repeating the tired lines of our scripted news personalities might help break the spell.
Even if it doesn’t, it’s a good first step. At this rate I’m terrified of what things will be like in 10 years.
