2008 Woodie Awards
Media coverage geared towards ratings instead of public interest
By Mike Goodwin
Rocket Staff Writer
Issue date: 11/4/05 Section: Opinion
Antagonism and mistreatment of intellect is used to get you, the reader, to pay attention. I hope you ignore it. Evidence shows that you do, but I just want to reinforce the idea.
The media is in a craze these days. Hurricanes, government scandals, earthquakes, wars (still in a couple right?) and typical celebrity uselessness (really, what purpose does Paris Hilton serve in the lives of anyone?) dominate national headlines. The cynic in me continues to find it all funny because of the glibness to it. From scare tactics to slick reporters, it's all for ratings benefits, trying to sucker in as many people as possible. "Hey, it's sweeps, lets show a reporter getting blown away in hurricane! Better yet, let's place Tara Reid in an Iraqi sandstorm talking about Dick Cheney's involvement in the CIA leak scandal!" I think that covers every major news presentation or idea an executive comes up with these days.
One of the more humorous news hours on television is the O'Reilly factor. Bless Stephen Colbert's heart for parodying a show like that. I personally love O'Reilly's fear based reporting involving solid black and white lines with no in between. If you question the war then you certainly must be anti-American. And that's just questioning it. Imagine actually being totally against it. The term Jihadist, one of O'Reilly's favorites, comes to mind. If a newspaper runs an article about the scandals in the White House, it's automatically labeled a liberal media outlet.
The remarkable part of this is that with his energy and following, O'Reilly could do some serious damage on lackluster reporting or some incompetent government decisions. Instead, as recently pointed out by Jon Stewart, he wastes time on things like a ban on France. You're more likely to see O'Reilly bash Cindy Sheehan or the perceived ACLU attack on Christmas than anything else going on in the country by O'Reilly.
Anderson Cooper is another one of those slick reporters you just don't know whether or not to trust. We watch for what; His good looks? No, it's far worse than that. No doubt his top news story of the past few weeks was Hurricane Wilma, which we were be glued to the television for, if in fact we're watching any news at all. Oil companies continue to get richer with skyrocketing gas prices, I have no idea what's going in Afghanistan at this point, and the only news I hear out of Iraq is the death toll. How goes the effort on saving the endangered apes of the Congo? Did that money from Live8 ever get to where it should be going? What are we doing to establish China (fastest growing country in the world) as an ally? How quickly our minds forget, and honestly, it's only somewhat our fault.
The media is in a craze these days. Hurricanes, government scandals, earthquakes, wars (still in a couple right?) and typical celebrity uselessness (really, what purpose does Paris Hilton serve in the lives of anyone?) dominate national headlines. The cynic in me continues to find it all funny because of the glibness to it. From scare tactics to slick reporters, it's all for ratings benefits, trying to sucker in as many people as possible. "Hey, it's sweeps, lets show a reporter getting blown away in hurricane! Better yet, let's place Tara Reid in an Iraqi sandstorm talking about Dick Cheney's involvement in the CIA leak scandal!" I think that covers every major news presentation or idea an executive comes up with these days.
One of the more humorous news hours on television is the O'Reilly factor. Bless Stephen Colbert's heart for parodying a show like that. I personally love O'Reilly's fear based reporting involving solid black and white lines with no in between. If you question the war then you certainly must be anti-American. And that's just questioning it. Imagine actually being totally against it. The term Jihadist, one of O'Reilly's favorites, comes to mind. If a newspaper runs an article about the scandals in the White House, it's automatically labeled a liberal media outlet.
The remarkable part of this is that with his energy and following, O'Reilly could do some serious damage on lackluster reporting or some incompetent government decisions. Instead, as recently pointed out by Jon Stewart, he wastes time on things like a ban on France. You're more likely to see O'Reilly bash Cindy Sheehan or the perceived ACLU attack on Christmas than anything else going on in the country by O'Reilly.
Anderson Cooper is another one of those slick reporters you just don't know whether or not to trust. We watch for what; His good looks? No, it's far worse than that. No doubt his top news story of the past few weeks was Hurricane Wilma, which we were be glued to the television for, if in fact we're watching any news at all. Oil companies continue to get richer with skyrocketing gas prices, I have no idea what's going in Afghanistan at this point, and the only news I hear out of Iraq is the death toll. How goes the effort on saving the endangered apes of the Congo? Did that money from Live8 ever get to where it should be going? What are we doing to establish China (fastest growing country in the world) as an ally? How quickly our minds forget, and honestly, it's only somewhat our fault.
