Batshit

When did the news become the Jerry Springer show?

There's been a lot of talk for several years about how corporate ownership and media conglomerates have changed the way news editors work. I guess there was a whole season of The Wire built around the idea that what goes on the pages of a newspaper these days doesn't have to be about quality or even truth. I have to say though I think we're at a high water mark. News outlets are all about reporting the noise now, not about reporting the reason.

Its sad to me that the most upright *newscasts* these days are The Daily Show and Real Time with Bill Maher. On these shows you can depend on people being asked a thoughtful followup question or having people making the noise explored a little beyond their vitriol. There was a short story on Real Time setting the Rural Area Medical stop in LA against LA town hall meetings on health insurance reform. We'd all seen the folk outside shouting at the legislators about how the government has no place in our healthcare. It took Real Time to tell us that at least in this case those people were Lyndon Larouche supporters. Was that a point the other news outlets didn't find salient?

(As a side note, the juxtaposition of less than 100 protestors claiming we have no need for universal heathcare and literally thousands of people lined up for a one time chance at free heathcare was pretty powerful, and something no other news outlet chose to do - well done Real Time.)

This week I constantly heard on the radio, and eventually read in the paper how "some" parents don't want their child to hear the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES deliver a back to school address. In the paper one of the district officials said she'd had "30 calls." Does anyone for a minute think in a city district that 30 calls could possibly be a significant number? At the high school I attended, 30 calls would be 1.2%. I bet without much effort I could generate 30 calls to any district about anything. If they got 30 calls saying all swim classes should be naked do you think they would seriously consider it? How about 30 calls saying students should be able to drink wine in the school cafeteria? 30 calls? 30 calls? Really? 30 calls?

Batshit.

It isn't news. Maybe if the story was "after receiving 30 calls this school is actually considering making a policy decision - WTF is up with that." That might be news. We need to focus on the stories and not on the noise. Noise is WAY to easy to generate these days. I haven't seen the story about how thousands of people had the same facebook status two days ago (ok, I looked, Google News says there were nine - and after looking at the stories they were all "will it matter" and "how did it start" process stories - not one about the fact that thousands of people stood up).

Screaming, batshit people (on either end of the spectrum for that matter) might make good TV; it certainly has been great for Springer and the like. But the fringe is the fringe. The more you report it the more it seems like it is normal. It's not normal, it's batshit. Not allowing your kid to hear the President is batshit. Threatening to secede from the union is batshit. Bringing a gun to a Presidential rally is batshit. Its generally accepted wisdom that Lyndon Larouche supporters aren't mainstream. Why are we covering this crap?

Stop watching the shiny objects. Find the news. That's your job - not mine.