In my past posts I have told you that I am an unabashed fan of Malcolm Gladwell, the author of The Tipping Point. I have learned that it's not always your enemies that get you into trouble and it's not always your friends that get you out of trouble. Murdoch has been fairly consistent in his media investments: they are almost always controversial and, the exception of the Wall Street Journal, always in your face. Fox News caters, unabashedly, to the lunatic fringe right wing political supporters. The problem with the race to the bottom is that there is no bottom. That is until the bottom starts pushing back.
I am old enough to remember the time when news was left to the newspaper and, to a letter extent, the radio. The radio delivered measured news on a regular basis. I cannot remember a time when there was "Breaking News" (except when VE and VJ --that is Victory Europe and Victory Japan was proclaimed).
In the early 50s, at least in Canada, television was an entertainment media. There was measured news on both the Canadian and US channels, usually at 6 or 6:30 in the evening. Who cannot remember Walter Cronkite. News was "believed" because there was a trust relationship between the news reader and the listener/viewer. Who cannot remember Lorne Greene (later of cowboy fame) whose "voice of doom" was the very epitome of news integrity. Of course there was always a fringe element in print media. These newspapers, many of which were in New York, offered local colour. But, as I remember it, the news was the news. Plain and simple.
I clearly remember the tipping point in news reporting. It was CNN. Here was a "news channel" whose only redeeming factor was that news was becoming a 24/7 product. Since it was a product of television, news had to be short. There was very little analysis and very little editorializing. It was news, news, news. It did not make much money for a long time and it's founder Ted Turner finally sold out for very big bucks. Thereafter the very nature of the media changed. News went from being information to being a product. Soon, the story became news rather than news becoming the story.
The other tipping point came when television went from mainly a broadcast media to a cable media. Suddenly, the number of channels went from 20 to 200 to the present 600 channels. Viewers were now subjected to competition for their eyeballs (just as later the Internet became a competitor for eyeballs). News channels proliferated and, in doing so, sought out every mechanism and trick to pry away eyeballs from one channel to the other. If you were a right wing conservative why listen to any other broadcast than one with which you already agreed. I call this bobble-headed viewing. Just keep nodding. Don't listen or watch anything that might give you another point of view. Even the relatively even handed cable stations are hurting. The political left listens to leftist cable stations. The political center begs for money to keep the public broadcasting stations afloat.
At one time the only scandal mongering print media was in the supermarket. However, the public's appetite for sensational news knew no ends. Paparazzi hounding directly led to the death of Princess Diana. Thousands, if not millions were paid for the right photograph--the more scandalous the better. Print media focused on scandal and sensationalism abounded in Britain. The race to the bottom was on in full force.
I believe that there will be a special place in hell for Nancy Grace. Her coverage of the recent trial in Florida concerning a young woman who was alleged to have killed her daughter was, to say the least, scandalous. Whatever the merits of the case, Ms. Grace-less had the woman tried and convicted well before the opening address to the jury. I am hopeful that the successful defendant will make her and her employer pay dearly in the courts. I am also hopeful, against hope, that Ms. Grace will be looking for a job.
It came as no surprise that all of this has ended in criminal activity. There is no "need to know" when the British Prime Minister's son is diagnosed with a serious illness. There is no "need to know" the whereabouts of the Royal Family unless one is an assassin. The "need to know" has become the "right to know", sometimes with disastrous results. Some publications in Britain led to suicides by those who were "exposed". Couple this with an institutional bent towards "freedom of information" and you have a societal feeling of entitlement that feeds on itself.
I have posted, previously, on the general erosion of a person's right to privacy. We seem to be giving up our privacy with wild abandon. Just see what you can find out on the Internet or on Facebook. However, when this comes back to bit us we are the first to holler that our privacy has been invaded. We want "the government" to do something about it when we are as complicit as others with our support of sensational media. Every paper we buy, every program we watch is a form of approval of this kind of reporting. No amount of advertising and cajoling reduced smoking until there was a general societal consensus that smoking was harmful, stupid and socially unacceptable. We need the same sea change when it comes to sensational print or broadcast media.
I am always mindful of what we tell our children about all of this. In my case my grandchildren. I truly believe that the Murdoch mess is a teaching moment. But, what to tell the kids? What can be learned from all of this? The first and obvious lesson is one of looking at news with a critical eye. While "believe no one" is a bit extreme, kids have to know that there is often more than one side to any story. The second less is that gossip is dangerous. We all engage in it to a degree. But wholesale gossiping is harmful. Mistruths have a way of proliferating. The object of the gossip may suffer irreparable harm. It's a form of bullying.
I fervently hope that Mr. Murdoch will have his knuckles rapped--in public, so that he will be as uncomfortable as those whose lives he invaded have been in the past. Good riddance.
Bernie.
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