From the notebooks: We are the media
Mar. 12th, 2008 03:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pjthompson(From my journals, September 1997.)
(This was written just after Princess Diana was killed, when everyone was saying how the paparazzi hounded her to death, and it was part of an ongoing online discussion. The only thing I'd change about it would be to add certain blogs and websites to the list of sleazy things to be avoided.)
I'm a news junkie, I admit it. But that doesn't mean I don't bring a healthy dose of cynicism to everything I see, hear, and read. The media is limited by its prejudices and worldview, just like all of us. At bedrock, we are the media, for good or ill, because the media are only as good as the society in which they exist.
Anyone in this society who doesn't understand that the news is manipulated and slanted—even with the best intentions—is naive or fooling themselves. But we're not as dumb as we look. We do "get it," most of the time. That doesn't mean we don't occasionally get caught up in events, go along for the ride for awhile, lie back and think of England—or whatever. Sometimes it's nice to be seduced. The morning after, we wake up and realize that as fun as the fantasy was, there's an underlying reality that's not quite as attractive as the night before.
Not all journalists participate in the sleaze. But I'm afraid a substantial number of "legitimate" news providers, including the vaunted New York Times, jump on the bandwagon at one time or another, if only to print the same sleazy Di&Dodi-like pictures to say how "awful" they are. It's a broad brush saying all journalists are bad, and I wouldn't support that statement, but you can't lie down with pigs and not get dirty. There's plenty of culpability to go around. Even right here in our own hearts.
We, the people, need a free, vigorous, and adversarial press to keep The Powers That Be in line. Too often these days, this vigor and zeal are turned on people who haven't got a goddamned thing to do with keeping government, et al., honest. These "innocent" people are persecuted as much or more than if they were stealing money from the till, dumping toxic waste in suburban neighborhoods, or waging illegal, undeclared war in "obscure" (from a Western-centric p.o.v.) parts of the world. No one is completely innocent, but I really don't see that sexual pecadillos, or just trying to live one's life, ranks up there with these crimes.
I am the staunchest of First Amendment supporters and would resist any effort to modify that Amendment—or any of the Bill of Rights, frankly. But I do believe people have a right to privacy. It's not just Diana and Tom Cruise and Arnold Schwarzenegger, it's us. We can have that media frenzy turned on us at any moment, quite unexpectedly. And I won't even get into government snooping for fear of sounding like Mulder and the Lone Gunmen.
I don't really know how to reconcile a free and vigorous press with the right to privacy. The two are in basic and essential conflict. It's one of those damned imponderables without a clear, easy answer. Or rather, any "easy" answer to this question will probably negatively impact other, essential rights and privileges of living in a free and open republic.
The media is the media is the media . . . and so predictable and so necessary and the product of the society in which it lives. Everyone needs to think about that one real hard. As long as we keep buying the sleaze, they will provide it for us. So if the media offends thee, stop watching those offensive shows, or reading those offensive tabloids, or listening to those radio programs. You can't pick and choose in this. As long as one sleaze merchant makes money, it leads to more breeding of the sleaze.
We are the media. We should demand better of ourselves.
(This was written just after Princess Diana was killed, when everyone was saying how the paparazzi hounded her to death, and it was part of an ongoing online discussion. The only thing I'd change about it would be to add certain blogs and websites to the list of sleazy things to be avoided.)
I'm a news junkie, I admit it. But that doesn't mean I don't bring a healthy dose of cynicism to everything I see, hear, and read. The media is limited by its prejudices and worldview, just like all of us. At bedrock, we are the media, for good or ill, because the media are only as good as the society in which they exist.
Anyone in this society who doesn't understand that the news is manipulated and slanted—even with the best intentions—is naive or fooling themselves. But we're not as dumb as we look. We do "get it," most of the time. That doesn't mean we don't occasionally get caught up in events, go along for the ride for awhile, lie back and think of England—or whatever. Sometimes it's nice to be seduced. The morning after, we wake up and realize that as fun as the fantasy was, there's an underlying reality that's not quite as attractive as the night before.
Not all journalists participate in the sleaze. But I'm afraid a substantial number of "legitimate" news providers, including the vaunted New York Times, jump on the bandwagon at one time or another, if only to print the same sleazy Di&Dodi-like pictures to say how "awful" they are. It's a broad brush saying all journalists are bad, and I wouldn't support that statement, but you can't lie down with pigs and not get dirty. There's plenty of culpability to go around. Even right here in our own hearts.
We, the people, need a free, vigorous, and adversarial press to keep The Powers That Be in line. Too often these days, this vigor and zeal are turned on people who haven't got a goddamned thing to do with keeping government, et al., honest. These "innocent" people are persecuted as much or more than if they were stealing money from the till, dumping toxic waste in suburban neighborhoods, or waging illegal, undeclared war in "obscure" (from a Western-centric p.o.v.) parts of the world. No one is completely innocent, but I really don't see that sexual pecadillos, or just trying to live one's life, ranks up there with these crimes.
I am the staunchest of First Amendment supporters and would resist any effort to modify that Amendment—or any of the Bill of Rights, frankly. But I do believe people have a right to privacy. It's not just Diana and Tom Cruise and Arnold Schwarzenegger, it's us. We can have that media frenzy turned on us at any moment, quite unexpectedly. And I won't even get into government snooping for fear of sounding like Mulder and the Lone Gunmen.
I don't really know how to reconcile a free and vigorous press with the right to privacy. The two are in basic and essential conflict. It's one of those damned imponderables without a clear, easy answer. Or rather, any "easy" answer to this question will probably negatively impact other, essential rights and privileges of living in a free and open republic.
The media is the media is the media . . . and so predictable and so necessary and the product of the society in which it lives. Everyone needs to think about that one real hard. As long as we keep buying the sleaze, they will provide it for us. So if the media offends thee, stop watching those offensive shows, or reading those offensive tabloids, or listening to those radio programs. You can't pick and choose in this. As long as one sleaze merchant makes money, it leads to more breeding of the sleaze.
We are the media. We should demand better of ourselves.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-13 02:58 am (UTC)Dr. Drew on TV compared the celebrities to the human sacrifice of old -- we build people up just to destroy them for our entertainment/fulfillment. I can't say I disagree with the guy.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-13 07:33 pm (UTC)Yes, I think that's a very perceptive comment. The ritual kings and queens who must be sacrificed for the good of the people or to make the crops fertile or whatever. But we're so disconnected from our primal selves we go for celebrity sacrifices to make our own egos fertile.