Media On Media – Cracked Mirror View?

Is main-stream media distorting information as the result of seeing its own reflection in what is a cracked mirror view? Does this view distort what is reported? It seems that many of the news and information shows, and yes even the odd entertainment-news show that I watch does in at least some small way turn the attention of what they are paying attention to back on themselves lately.

What’s up with this media on media thing? It can’t really be honest introspection can it? Is it the media’s way of easing its guilty conscience for what it pays unending attention to in ways that reflect and mirror the addiction to distraction that exists in much of Western Culture and soceity these days?

Media is a mirror that has long since not only cracked but been so fragmented by its quest for advertising dollars and self-justification all it can hope to offer us is, at best a cracked view.

Who is driving what really? Does the media cover way so much of the “fluff stuff” that distracts from the really important issues that our world faces because that’s what makes them money and sells? Is it because it truly is what is popular?

Or does the media decide to dictate to us what we should want to see and what we should care about and then we just follow and tolerate and accept that?

Or do you think there is some possibility that the odd government likes to influence the “fluff stuff” that dominates much of television these days in the hopes that they won’t be held more accountable?

The media on the media, regarding their own questioning on actual programs about what they are covering – stories like the on-going saga of O.J. Simpson, the odd over-focused on missing child or murder case and so forth – may just be their way to justify our loyalty. Oh look, Larry King appears to have a moment of discomfort as he talks to someone about Anna Nicole Smith for the millionth time. Or Anderson Cooper wonders what all the fuss about is when he has to cover Paris Hilton. Glenn Beck seems indignant when he covered the up-coming book of Rosie O’Donnell. Even Star Jones this past week expressed discomfort with yet another O.J. saga. The women on The View seem to like the “fluff stuff” – what out of fear they won’t keep getting along? We live in hard times and hard times call for hard, factual, accurate, meaningful news not just another View fashion show.

I mean are we supposed to feel sorry for them? I feel sorry for society as a whole because in way too many minds what is mattering most these days is the “fluff stuff”. Meanwhile wars and atrocities rage on and no one is really being held accountable. Species are being wiped of the face of the earth everyday and we don’t hear about that in the media. The global warming crisis is real and much of the media are too busy examining the personal lives (read sexual dalliances) of politicians and/or celebrities to hold those with the influence and the chance to make important decisions – decisions that could mean life or death for us all – accountable. Sad isn’t it? The way the media’s dalliance of sacred time is put to misuse.

We live in troubled times. Does our media accurately reflect this? Do they stay long enough with the real stories? Are they trying to give us attention-deficit disorder with all of these shorter and shorter sound bytes? Sound bytes that now are often purposefully without context and what’s worse, whose context is often manipulated to cause controversy and support the opinions of the day of the talking head who controls the sound bytes. Remember the days when media tried to be impartial? They are long gone.

Do you remember when news was actually news? Do you remember what life was like before Western Culture’s fascination and obsession with the idea that celebrity “fluff stuff” is actually news? If you’re really young, ask your parents about the days before cable news and the internet.

Back then, in the good ‘ole days of media, before it routinely began to whore itself out to the highest paying “fluff stuff” the most often heard complaint was, “Why don’t they ever talk about some good news?”

Heavens, does society even long for good news anymore? I mean the more “fluff stuff” dirt on the latest celebrity (read human being with problems and pain) scandal is all the rage.

Media reflects us. We reflect it. Life imitates art right? In these narcissistic times we live in the media is as stuck on itself as a reason for being as it is on entertainment-news.

Media and its self-absorbed talking heads enjoy what is a self-proclaimed pseudo-relevance. But hey, don’t anybody try to tell them that now.

Media on media – now there’s a reflection that just sadly lacks much to mirror, don’t you think?

© A.J. Mahari 2007

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