News, Entertainment and Advertising
There was an article in our paper the other day about a new TV show – the one with Gena Davis playing the first woman president. It wasn’t in the ‘entertainment’ section; it was in the news. It appeared to me that it was a seriously written article, seriously suggesting that at long last, this show would pave the way for the real first woman president.
It was an advertisement for a TV show that was disguised as ‘news.'
Today, again in the paper, there was a guest editorial about the how blurred the lines are becoming between news, entertainment and advertising that furthers this point. Sarah Renfro of Lexington, a senior in Communications at the University of Kentucky, wrote that CBS chairman Les Moonves “announced recently that CBS is changing its national news to be more attractive and amusing because audiences prefer to be entertained, not depressed by tragic events.” She also cites the not-inconsiderable amount of time given by NBC, on their Dateline news show, to the ending of two of their own network comedy shows, Friends and Frazier. And she asserts that the attention given to such news as President Bush falling off his bicycle, Clinton’s penchant for Big Macs, and Reagan’s one-liners, is all out of proportion to the time and space given to hard news.
Sex scandals are always big news. Articles about pork barrel spending are not. Which do you suppose we actually hear more about? Which has bigger impact on our nation?
Our guest editorial further makes the point that “The purpose of the press is to empower the public by disseminating information through democratic processes.” Instead, we are getting “all entertainment, all the time.” Just scan your internet news headlines to see that this is true.
Do we still even have the means to be well-informed voters?
posted by Cathy @ 6:20 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
I think we're the problem...instead of demanding hard news, and watching those channels that provide it, too many of us encourage the "news" programs to continue their fluff programming.
I can't tell you the last time I watched broadcast news. I get my news from the Wall Street Journal and various internet outlets, as well as teasers from CNN in the morning. Even then, I usually take time to dig further into any story from any source that interests me, because I know I am not getting both sides of the story, presented as facts and nothing else, from any one source anymore.
It's a lot of work to be well informed!
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