Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Ten Things Flat Out Wrong - Number Four
Ten Things Flat Out Wrong – Number Four
TWENTY-FOUR HOUR INFORMATION GLUT
I love sports. How could I imagine a better thing than the creation of twenty-four sports shows to provide all the information about every game being played anywhere in the world? It is hard to imagine.
Not only are the games covered, but I get in-depth recaps, interviews with the stars, fan on the street comments, and let’s never forget, hosts and reporters who think they are the main event.
The reporting of the news becomes the important aspect when these guys are on the screen or the radio for hours at a time. They are stars of the airwaves; they interview each other; they try whenever they can to actually be a part of the news itself. You may have noticed I started to use the word ‘news.’ Well, sports is news, but everything I’m talking about applies to local news, world news, celebrity news and weather news. It’s all the same today – twenty-four hour access.
The coach of the world champion Chicago White Sox got in a media argument with a reporter last week. There’s no question that the coach made some comments that were out of line, he should have known better. He said things he had to apologize about later, but didn’t apologize directly to the reporter, in fact insisted on not apologizing to him. There were comments made by the reporter about his not setting foot in that clubhouse until some changes were made. What went wrong with his thinking? These are, after all, the world champs and currently one of the hottest teams in baseball. They don’t care if this guy shows up again, leaves the city, stops reporting on baseball, or quits the business altogether.
But, he may stop going into their clubhouse.
He is no longer reporting. He is part of the news now. He is one of the stars of the new entertainment of sports participatory journalism. It is everywhere, with television shows committed to sports participatory journalists interviewing each other and discussing current events amongst themselves for public display. They are the stars – sometimes athletes are not actually amongst them.
I went to a basketball game and during the first timeout the cheerleaders ran onto the floor. This is normal and has been since as long as I can remember. The cheerleaders performed a routine set to music; I noticed it had nothing to do with the game or their team – and then climbed into a little pyramid. When they got done, they all put their hands up and had this strange look on their faces. They started waving their arms up and down, the timeout was nearing an end. That look on their faces remained.
I realized they wanted on ovation. It is akin to actors taking a bow. It had nothing to do with the game, the players or anything – except them. They were the show. We were supposed to clap for them, and the crowd started to respond, they got some half-assed applause.
“They think they’re the show,” I said to my wife.
Anyway, they join the journalist as part of the package, not compliments to the package, not cheerleaders for their team, but they are their own deal. This is their thirty seconds of fame.
There are a multitude of television shows about celebrities. Each of these have a star or two who themselves become celebrities. The same for hard news reporters who come from so-called news shows that have a weekly hour long program dedicated to one subject or sometimes a couple. They are often seen on the celebrity shows along with their celebrity hosts. And then there are inserted reporters. What are these? We have always had war correspondents. Some of the most respected reporters did that. Now we have inserted reporters who become celebrities. When they are on, we’re not seeing footage of the war with them describing action. We’re seeing them. We’re watching reporters back home interviewing reporters who are inserted amongst the action.
If something real happens to one of these people, they make all the shows (except maybe the sports shows) – (unless they’re an athlete) – (or married to an athlete) – (or dating an athlete). They may also not get on the cooking shows (unless they’re….well see above for athlete).
Why does it matter?
Two quick reasons. First, I notice that with hard news, certain subjects come around every so often. Date rape is one. This is a terrible crime and I watched as television news tried hard to reveal the acts, the motivation, the things to watch out for, and then saw they were running a week-long series on it. That’s great.
It’s great until I noticed their big movie the next week was about date rape. They used the news shows as commercials. It used to be that we got thirty minutes of news, and they had to work hard to get it all in. Now they have plenty of time to select what they think is news. That is very close to creating news, being part of the news and unnatural selection.
Second and most important, we get bombarded with very personal stories about people that didn’t want to share their lives. However, in today’s world it is justified if it is newsworthy, which often means if it will cause people to watch and make money for somebody.
We get year-long missing person information about somebody on a vacation island or a yacht. Whether or not a plug is going to be pulled becomes the product of a death-watch, with every comment spread world-wide. If somebody loses a child to an automobile running a stoplight, we have reporters racing to the scene to ask parents, uncles and neighbors how it made them feel. We’ve got to fill the news over a twenty-four hour period.
Let’s back off a bit. Maybe tell us something to help with our lives. It’s become reality entertainment at other people’s expense. Here’s hoping that you’re not in their shoes anytime soon.
TWENTY-FOUR HOUR INFORMATION GLUT
I love sports. How could I imagine a better thing than the creation of twenty-four sports shows to provide all the information about every game being played anywhere in the world? It is hard to imagine.
Not only are the games covered, but I get in-depth recaps, interviews with the stars, fan on the street comments, and let’s never forget, hosts and reporters who think they are the main event.
The reporting of the news becomes the important aspect when these guys are on the screen or the radio for hours at a time. They are stars of the airwaves; they interview each other; they try whenever they can to actually be a part of the news itself. You may have noticed I started to use the word ‘news.’ Well, sports is news, but everything I’m talking about applies to local news, world news, celebrity news and weather news. It’s all the same today – twenty-four hour access.
The coach of the world champion Chicago White Sox got in a media argument with a reporter last week. There’s no question that the coach made some comments that were out of line, he should have known better. He said things he had to apologize about later, but didn’t apologize directly to the reporter, in fact insisted on not apologizing to him. There were comments made by the reporter about his not setting foot in that clubhouse until some changes were made. What went wrong with his thinking? These are, after all, the world champs and currently one of the hottest teams in baseball. They don’t care if this guy shows up again, leaves the city, stops reporting on baseball, or quits the business altogether.
But, he may stop going into their clubhouse.
He is no longer reporting. He is part of the news now. He is one of the stars of the new entertainment of sports participatory journalism. It is everywhere, with television shows committed to sports participatory journalists interviewing each other and discussing current events amongst themselves for public display. They are the stars – sometimes athletes are not actually amongst them.
I went to a basketball game and during the first timeout the cheerleaders ran onto the floor. This is normal and has been since as long as I can remember. The cheerleaders performed a routine set to music; I noticed it had nothing to do with the game or their team – and then climbed into a little pyramid. When they got done, they all put their hands up and had this strange look on their faces. They started waving their arms up and down, the timeout was nearing an end. That look on their faces remained.
I realized they wanted on ovation. It is akin to actors taking a bow. It had nothing to do with the game, the players or anything – except them. They were the show. We were supposed to clap for them, and the crowd started to respond, they got some half-assed applause.
“They think they’re the show,” I said to my wife.
Anyway, they join the journalist as part of the package, not compliments to the package, not cheerleaders for their team, but they are their own deal. This is their thirty seconds of fame.
There are a multitude of television shows about celebrities. Each of these have a star or two who themselves become celebrities. The same for hard news reporters who come from so-called news shows that have a weekly hour long program dedicated to one subject or sometimes a couple. They are often seen on the celebrity shows along with their celebrity hosts. And then there are inserted reporters. What are these? We have always had war correspondents. Some of the most respected reporters did that. Now we have inserted reporters who become celebrities. When they are on, we’re not seeing footage of the war with them describing action. We’re seeing them. We’re watching reporters back home interviewing reporters who are inserted amongst the action.
If something real happens to one of these people, they make all the shows (except maybe the sports shows) – (unless they’re an athlete) – (or married to an athlete) – (or dating an athlete). They may also not get on the cooking shows (unless they’re….well see above for athlete).
Why does it matter?
Two quick reasons. First, I notice that with hard news, certain subjects come around every so often. Date rape is one. This is a terrible crime and I watched as television news tried hard to reveal the acts, the motivation, the things to watch out for, and then saw they were running a week-long series on it. That’s great.
It’s great until I noticed their big movie the next week was about date rape. They used the news shows as commercials. It used to be that we got thirty minutes of news, and they had to work hard to get it all in. Now they have plenty of time to select what they think is news. That is very close to creating news, being part of the news and unnatural selection.
Second and most important, we get bombarded with very personal stories about people that didn’t want to share their lives. However, in today’s world it is justified if it is newsworthy, which often means if it will cause people to watch and make money for somebody.
We get year-long missing person information about somebody on a vacation island or a yacht. Whether or not a plug is going to be pulled becomes the product of a death-watch, with every comment spread world-wide. If somebody loses a child to an automobile running a stoplight, we have reporters racing to the scene to ask parents, uncles and neighbors how it made them feel. We’ve got to fill the news over a twenty-four hour period.
Let’s back off a bit. Maybe tell us something to help with our lives. It’s become reality entertainment at other people’s expense. Here’s hoping that you’re not in their shoes anytime soon.
