Paparazzi taking over journalism, photojournalism

If you go into the checkout of nearly any shopping center, you are immediately bombarded by flashy magazines and tabloids.  They boast more scandals and "Guess who did what" articles than you could possibly comprehend in one sitting.  Many times, these articles are entirely based on speculations or what-ifs, and they are frequently about things that most people could, or should, care less about.  However, it's obvious that the American population gobbles this type of reporting up like candy because it continues to expand.

The paparazzi are a huge part of any news source anymore because of the market appeal and the money they bring in.  Scandals and drama all help contribute to shock value, which is one of the bigger drives behind grasping the attention of an audience. However, it needs to be debated as to where the line for news begins to fade and where sensationalism begins.  It's no secret that news outlets do this to try to raise their views or readership on a particularly slow week, yet the articles constructed by paparazzi-oriented circulations seem to overly abuse this method of reporting through each issue.

Photojournalism is by no means a dead art.  The saying that a picture is worth a thousand words rings as true today as it did decades ago, though we seem determined, as a society, to kill that belief.  In the past, photos brought us the reality of how horrid wars were, the shock of presidents being assaulted, and chilling accounts of domestic attacks.  These are prime examples of how pictures should be used to write their own stories and to let an audience have an emotional connection.  More often now, the paparazzi provide us photos of a celebrity's behind and want us to guess who has cellulite, or a bald spot of a celebrity that has to start using Rogaine.  No value within the picture, emotional connection or story to be told, yet it sells issues to those who aren't seeking anything past surface-level eye candy.

Today, living vicariously is one way that many people can feel like they live the American dream.  A very small percentage of people make it into stardom compared to those that either aspire or attempt to.  Through a paparazzo's picture series of a star attending a party full of other big names, people are able to think that they have also been there and were a part of it.  We seem to have an insatiable fascination with the idea of being able to have an experience without actually having to deal with it, or even having the opportunity to.

I think it's starting to become more of a truth that, as a society, we are disinterested enough in our own lives that we constantly have to surround ourselves with other people's experiences.  

Kurt Vonnegut believed that our exposures to sensationalized stories sparked some of this dissatisfaction because we believe that life has to have some sort of ebb and flow between excitement and distress.  

His belief, combined with our tendency to live vicariously, is a recipe for why we seem to be largely attracted to drama and other shock-oriented feelings.  The media won't change what it shows until the audience changes what it wants to see.  If we want to see less of what the Kardashians are doing, then we have to stop fueling the sources that feed us.