in my mass communications ethics class today, we addressed [or at least attempted to] the issue of: what is newsworthy? what makes news, news? and who decides what is newsworthy?
normally i sit in the back corner and do my crossword puzzle without saying a word but, of course, the professor decided to actually start looking at the roster to see which names he couldn't match a face with i.e. mine. we watched two different news interviews featuring Andrew Young and also one regarding Jenny Sanford, both discussing the possibility that the respective books these two have written are not actually news at all. the interview regarding Sanford went on to discuss what kind of news stories journalists and news programs should be covering. in it, they discussed why we even care about who writes books about other people's tragedies as opposed to reporting on what is actually going on in the world [ie. the congo, rwanda, sex trafficking, etc.]. it got me thinking about what kind of society we are to continually feed into this frenzied obsession about pointless news?
is it our fault, as the general public, since we are the ones that make up the ratings? or is it the producers' faults because they won't allow reporters to investigate actual stories so they don't lose ratings. it seems as though we are stuck with what the networks feed us, and as a result we are left craving more and more useless information about who is dating who, which celebrities are cheating, and where in the world can we find a cheap knock-off version of that fabulous purse so we can feel better about our lives? i feel as though too much of our news is trivial and pointless. honestly, why do we even care about celebrities lives and what's going on in them? is there anything we can do about it? no. so why do we care? why do we keep buying these magazines rather than donate that money to a legitimate cause? if we were presented with real news stories, would we make the conscious decision to watch those versus what's the latest with Tiger Woods? i certainly hope so.
i don't think that having news that educates people into action or a worthwhile awareness is such a bad thing. i mean, knowing about issues that are going on in the world could certainly prompt us to take action or have an increased awareness, at least, about the issue til a hopeful resolution was achieved. especially in america where the spotlight tends to fall anyways. if america changed the way that it did news, would others follow? it certainly has proved successful for Oprah.
am i alone in this or...?
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