7 December 2008

Readership in newspapers and magazines are down; viewship on broadcast TV is too; and the competition on line is brutal.  And there's the rub: competition.  Each thrives on hits and when the public hits elsewhere they suffer, so what to do?  The answer, apparently, is increase sensationalism - and timeliness; it sells; it's what attracts customers.

The result is somewhat of an embarassment for what used to be the most professional, truthful and balanced media in the world.  Other country's media tend to be blantantly partisan - it's the way they are - ours has prided itself in being more responsible.  But that appears to be changing with the competition; blog after all can make any kind of unsubstantiated charge, and do.

The obvious is the latest political campaign where crass partisanship was not only evident but obsessive.  But there is more, and a great deal of the more has to do with celebrities - any and all celebrities and their lives.  Why does media report such drivel with such enthusiasm?  The answer:  because the public reads/watches it.  So as is so often the situation, the culprit is less media than it is us - we are the cause of declining media professionalism.  We are voyeurs; we hunger for controversy; we love inuendo;  and we are suckers for conspiracies - the more timely the better.  What is the matter with us?

I would contend that we haven't changed all that much; in other words we've always been like this - or at least some small number of us.  But the media proliferation and particularly the interactive capability it is offering, has just given it voice - and it's not that everyone uses it, but we notice those who do, and that's the real reason for the transition.  As media competition demands resorting to sensation, many seek it, and when they find it, use it, creating opportunity for more creation of what can not otherwise be found.  Much of the success of terrorists is creative use of media type sensation, often of their generation, and terrorists have become very adept at using both terror generation and the media.  Let's face it, anything that happens anywhere  (no matter how trivial or obscure) if it has sufficient sensation component is splashed on media somewhere, picked up, and flashed around the world.  It was always there, but now it's front page here, creating hunger for more.

And that's the final act.  Couch potatoes, with limited understanding of much of anything, latch onto the sensation and make it the normal routine: that's the way things are.  No, it is not how things are, but the perception of how and what they are.   And, unfortunately, perception can be everything.

It is within our capabilities to resist - if we want to resist.  Many do; but more don't, and those are the focus of media.  Once again, we meet the enemy and he is us.  Kind of sad, isn't it?  Pathetic actually.