GIJoel's Rowdy Rants (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} gijoel666) wrote,@ 2009-06-26 07:09:00 |
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Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead and I'm getting a little sick and tired myself
Does nobody in the news/journalism industry have any respect for their profession anymore?
Ever since O.J. Simpson took a white SUV for a long ride with cops behind him, the assumption of news editors every-freakin'-where in America, and I suppose other countries as well, has been that the public desires to consume nonstop 24-hour coverage of hyped sensationalist irrelevancies in lieu of the various other events happening on the same day that actually affect our real lives and those of thousands and/or millions in direct ways, rather than as bemused but disconnected spectators.
If you want to suggest that many people will be inclined to dredge up memories of Michael Jackson when he was an entertainer upon hearing of his sudden "premature" death, and that that justifies reviewing his life for all of us, yeah, there's some validity to that. But it doesn't require nonstop 24-hour rehash. 20 minutes out of every 2 hours for half a day would be more than enough of an obituary to be spoken on the TV and radio. The stories will be available on our web browsers or in newspapers and magazines whenever we have a few minutes to spare to read them for a very long time, if we really feel a need to. And in the grand scheme of things, there are enough other things of genuine import still happening today and for the next days or weeks or months that affect real people in real ways that acknowledging that Michael will still be dead tomorrow and the next day and the day after that and letting the story subside until something new yet equally unimportant happens (like an autopsy report) is the right thing to do to leave time in broadcast schedules to report REAL freakin' NEWS.
Maybe I'm a little biased about this story because I only see the reality of the sad, physically and mentally decayed phantasm Mr. Jackson devolved into overwhelming the bright light that was his once immense talent. To try to remember him happily as the singing and dancing superstar is to buy a fantasy and ignore the dangerous freak that replaced it. It doesn't work -- not for his ex-wives, not for his children, and not for the children of other parents who were preyed upon by him. I don't want to keep thinking about him because it just makes me mad what he could have been instead of what he was, and it ought to do the same to the rest of us. His life is over; it was not a happy good life, he's better off dead, lay him to rest already. 40 million Iranians don't give a shit that Michael Jackson is dead, or that Farrah Fawcett is dead; the real story is that Neda Soltan is dead and democracy is being killed in Iran at the very moment that all this nonsense is the only stuff being reported, and those stories have a closer connection to more Americans! (not just Iranians) than Michael Jackson has had in close to two decades. Iranians can't spare the time that their news is shuttered from us by this "event".
News editors have no business letting Michael's death overshadow hypocrisy in Congress on health care reform, and hypocrisy among elected officials on aspects of family values that they trumpet as the foundation of their political platform, and continued domestic terrorism and media commentators' disingenuously barely veiled exhortation of same. We didn't have that whole day and counting to spare for nothing but Michael, that's just plain irresponsible. I expect crap like that to happen on Fox, or CNN or commercial broadcast networks, but when I tune in to MSNBC and it's there too, I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna watch it anymore. Someone please let me know when they start talking about something relevant again.
Does nobody in the news/journalism industry have any respect for their profession anymore?
Ever since O.J. Simpson took a white SUV for a long ride with cops behind him, the assumption of news editors every-freakin'-where in America, and I suppose other countries as well, has been that the public desires to consume nonstop 24-hour coverage of hyped sensationalist irrelevancies in lieu of the various other events happening on the same day that actually affect our real lives and those of thousands and/or millions in direct ways, rather than as bemused but disconnected spectators.
If you want to suggest that many people will be inclined to dredge up memories of Michael Jackson when he was an entertainer upon hearing of his sudden "premature" death, and that that justifies reviewing his life for all of us, yeah, there's some validity to that. But it doesn't require nonstop 24-hour rehash. 20 minutes out of every 2 hours for half a day would be more than enough of an obituary to be spoken on the TV and radio. The stories will be available on our web browsers or in newspapers and magazines whenever we have a few minutes to spare to read them for a very long time, if we really feel a need to. And in the grand scheme of things, there are enough other things of genuine import still happening today and for the next days or weeks or months that affect real people in real ways that acknowledging that Michael will still be dead tomorrow and the next day and the day after that and letting the story subside until something new yet equally unimportant happens (like an autopsy report) is the right thing to do to leave time in broadcast schedules to report REAL freakin' NEWS.
Maybe I'm a little biased about this story because I only see the reality of the sad, physically and mentally decayed phantasm Mr. Jackson devolved into overwhelming the bright light that was his once immense talent. To try to remember him happily as the singing and dancing superstar is to buy a fantasy and ignore the dangerous freak that replaced it. It doesn't work -- not for his ex-wives, not for his children, and not for the children of other parents who were preyed upon by him. I don't want to keep thinking about him because it just makes me mad what he could have been instead of what he was, and it ought to do the same to the rest of us. His life is over; it was not a happy good life, he's better off dead, lay him to rest already. 40 million Iranians don't give a shit that Michael Jackson is dead, or that Farrah Fawcett is dead; the real story is that Neda Soltan is dead and democracy is being killed in Iran at the very moment that all this nonsense is the only stuff being reported, and those stories have a closer connection to more Americans! (not just Iranians) than Michael Jackson has had in close to two decades. Iranians can't spare the time that their news is shuttered from us by this "event".
News editors have no business letting Michael's death overshadow hypocrisy in Congress on health care reform, and hypocrisy among elected officials on aspects of family values that they trumpet as the foundation of their political platform, and continued domestic terrorism and media commentators' disingenuously barely veiled exhortation of same. We didn't have that whole day and counting to spare for nothing but Michael, that's just plain irresponsible. I expect crap like that to happen on Fox, or CNN or commercial broadcast networks, but when I tune in to MSNBC and it's there too, I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna watch it anymore. Someone please let me know when they start talking about something relevant again.
