Friday, February 20, 2009

Enough with the dead chimp, please!

Every few news cycles (which is to say every few hours) there is a super hot story that I regard as a complete non-story. What I mean is there is no reason a serious news organization should cover it because there is no benefit to be had by sharing with the public in great detail every bit of information. 

Stay with me. The peanut processing plant/salmonella story is news. You could die if you eat the wrong brand of peanut butter and crackers. The recently passed legislation is news because it will either ruin or save the country. Depends if you are watching NBC or FOX.

One story that is headlining everywhere is the crazed chimp story. Why? What are the chances that 99 44/100 of us are ever going to bump into a domesticated chimp. You pretty much have to seek out an encounter with a lower primate living as a slacker man-child.

 So the minute-by-minute BREAKING NEWS and UPDATES are not really in the interest of public safety or edification. They are driven by entertainment . Sorry, news people, I'm not entertained by the 911 call.  I don't really care to hear what Travis' "mom" has to say in recounting the details. 

My breaking point came when I visited my favorite local station's website (WKYC.com) and saw splashed at the top of the page -  ALERT: Woman mauled by chimp being treated at Cleveland Clinic.

If you work at a modern broadcast news establishment I'd imagine you must be pretty demoralized by now. You probably went to school to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." Now you've been reduced to Bonzo Goes Berserk. 

And too think February sweeps were delayed this year.
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3 comments:

  1. Anonymous2/22/2009 4:55 PM

    Why were you on WKYC.com? Were you looking at Betsy Kling's profile again?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Matthew K2/22/2009 7:05 PM

    Very funny, Jen. She went to BGSU, you know!

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  3. Limber Joe2/24/2009 9:02 AM

    Over the last year, I have corresponded with a couple of news anchors. They will confide in you that they are very demoralized with the direction that their news rooms have gone. They are instructed (as everyone has deduced) to make every story local. The result is an impression that our little corner of the world has (and probably does have) a huge inferiority complex. It reminds me of the flying nun whimpering, "You LIKE me! You really LIKE me!" They're somehow attempting to say, "Look at us! We're important!"

    Very little on the local news "shows" have anything to do with news. And yes, you will hear them refer to the "news show".

    If you read about it in the morning paper, it'll probably be "news" hours later on TV. How lazy.

    I'll continue to watch Betsy, however.

    LJ

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