*Latent rant brought to you by Fox News Porn
Maybe I’m just seeing what I want to, but is the older generation of newsfolks - you know, the ones who understood that journalism’s function is only partially to entertain - just dryly reading the cards and waiting to retire?
Two years ago Rather demonstrated some spirit only to became somehow disreputed - and certainly fired - for sticking his head out on the crucial question of a “war president’s” personal will to war. WTF?
Now it seems like I have two things to look forward to from the 24 hour news cycle networks:
a.) tabloid-colored interpretations of entertaining stories, and glossing over of less so.
b.) crabby old men whom I would dismiss instantly as hacks if they weren’t the only voices not variations of a mutant Ryan Seacrest/Matt Drudge/Alan Holmes hybrid.
What simultaneously is worrisome and encouraging about this perceived phenomenon is its concurrence with the emergence of the web and all it’s varied voices. Is tabloid news fueled by the recent filling of its previous informational niche online, or the other way around?
I think it’s two things:
1) ala the Saunders book you lent me, we’ve slowly been culturally conditioned to expect minimal content and maximal entertainment/flash from the news
2) alternative news mediums make all TV news concerned they’ll become irrelevant, so the whole game becomes about hitting the audience with as much of what they want as possible: ie, flash, and, in the case of certain shows/networks, opinionated sound bytes that fit neatly into the audience’s worldview
Oh what an original comment i made