Selective Journalism
A young, female, college student goes missing amid the local Cinco de Mayo festivities. The local media jumps on the story with insinuations of foul play as the girl was last seen with strangers foreign to her element. Possibly a neighborhood Natalie Holloway theme.
Fast forward to later the next day when the girl is found safe and uninjured in the area where she disappeared. Just a short blurb in the local paper, but I must have missed the TV coverage while making a sandwich. We are definitely grateful to God that the story had a happy ending. However, I feel that the media may have been a bit blunted by the lack of a sensationalist story. In other words: no harm, no foul.
Which comes first, “the chicken or the egg”? Does the media only devote its time and effort to reporting the horrific for the sake of ratings? Or do we as a general public thrive on the sensationalism, thereby encouraging the media to satiate our base needs?
posted by Dan at 4:17 PM
3 Comments:
What came first is people's desire to succeed and do better than someone else.Picture a Hobbesian type of world. One must not only surpass others in the Darwinian struggle of "survival of the fittest", but looking out for oneself ahead of everything and everyone else, thus contributing to the being better than the next, or "keeping up with the jones's" syndrome. So whoever can make the biggest deal out of something wins the race, the ratings and recognition for concern of the human race, the public audience. They have lasted one step longer than their competitors, regardless of the cost. Sensationalist news reporting is driving the media, not the actual reporting of news, the research of what the public should know. The true reason for sharing news has long been forgotten in favor of red carpets, shiny trophies, "look at me, look at me" recognition.
by the way, this is angela 2.
Finally,someone gets the message and paints in more eloquently than I.
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