The News, entertainment whether we like it or not.
In the past few weeks I have seen a disturbing rise in the amount of pleasure people have gained out of watching the news, most recently and frankly shockingly, the pleasure in watching and documenting Colonel Gadaffi's demise. I will look at how major events such as this are turned into a crude form of entertainment and trivialised, by news papers, television shows and internet forums.
I bring again the Gadaffi story to the forefront of this argument because I feel it shows best how news has declined from being informative and impartial and turned into the trivial mess that it is today.
In the past few weeks I have seen a disturbing rise in the amount of pleasure people have gained out of watching the news, most recently and frankly shockingly, the pleasure in watching and documenting Colonel Gadaffi's demise. I will look at how major events such as this are turned into a crude form of entertainment and trivialised, by news papers, television shows and internet forums.
I bring again the Gadaffi story to the forefront of this argument because I feel it shows best how news has declined from being informative and impartial and turned into the trivial mess that it is today.
I walked past a newsagents the day after Gadaffi was shot and captured and saw on the cover of a newspaper, in big black font "THIS IS FOR LOCKERBIE" with the image of him slumped down covered in blood, this was, obviously on the cover of the Sun, already a trivial tabloid newspaper for people to purchase anyway, but I was astounded at the sheer guts the newspaper had for printing this, because it was bending peoples opinions into a very messed up view, of how we should celebrate along with the Libyans that Gadaffi is dead. In actual fact I am annoyed to say the least that he will not stand trial, and give the Lockerbie families reasons as to his actions, that he won't be able to tell us about who he consorted with in other governments, I think Tony Blair is sleeping a little sounder knowing some things aren't going to arise now. However, the readers judgement is clouded on issues such as that because the newspaper gave them something to be happy about and to revel in and, gain entertainment from, which is distressing because it is showing the world is slowly becoming a place where the easiest answer, the easiest option is the one people will accept and take more enjoyment from.
Also, we are presented with too many satirical shows, poking fun at the big issues of the week, I know this is how I get a good dose of my information from, but I read lots of articles on the subjects, trying to find the fact from fiction and to form a view of my own, whereas the average joe will not make that effort, so will agree with the case put before them by the person they think is funniest. Nowadays jokes can be made about someone in the news almost instantly, the amount of iCoffin jokes and the like a friend of mine and I shared when Steve Jobs died were a bit much, but that was how I found out he had passed away, through someone telling a joke on twitter, it is so easy to spread an opinion on a big issue through a joke through sites such as twitter, I regularly see ill humoured jokes on issues which are pressing and should be dealt with by everyone with more tact, and more adultly, instead of lowering the importance of the issue by making a petty joke.
Also, we are presented with too many satirical shows, poking fun at the big issues of the week, I know this is how I get a good dose of my information from, but I read lots of articles on the subjects, trying to find the fact from fiction and to form a view of my own, whereas the average joe will not make that effort, so will agree with the case put before them by the person they think is funniest. Nowadays jokes can be made about someone in the news almost instantly, the amount of iCoffin jokes and the like a friend of mine and I shared when Steve Jobs died were a bit much, but that was how I found out he had passed away, through someone telling a joke on twitter, it is so easy to spread an opinion on a big issue through a joke through sites such as twitter, I regularly see ill humoured jokes on issues which are pressing and should be dealt with by everyone with more tact, and more adultly, instead of lowering the importance of the issue by making a petty joke.
The internet certainly doesn't help provide solid information, with forums where people can post their opinions and views no matter how twisted or strange and discuss, for their own entertainment, because I think people only post strange opinions because they get replies and people arguing, thus shying away from the issue which was going to be discussed, trivialising the topic once more, giving the original person who deviated the discussion, amusement and entertainment.
Music Video channels are now incorporating news portions in the corner of the music videos, consisting of the weather report and a recent fact or headline about the artist currently being shown, the news the target audience of these channels, young people 14-25, is trivial information, in most cases what one celebrity said they thought about another, hardly highly important issues, but because this is probably the only information these people will receive, they talk about it with friends and co-workers, because this news is entertaining. In today's society, the average person will not want to read or listen to the news unless they feel they will get something out of it, and the simplest way for the news to feed that "want" the reader/viewer/listener has is to provide them entertainment along with the information.
It is a vicious circle where unfortunately everything will end up deteriorating and people will have snippets of information provided in the form of a joke for them to learn anything about the current state of their government, the economy, sport, etc. Major news needs to trivialise itself by reducing to crude entertainment in a desperate bid to inform and educate today's audiences because they see no other way to inform the general public.
Unfortunately we need the news to entertain us, because if it didn't then I fear the vast majority of people would be even more tuned off to what is happening around the world, at least by entertaining the general public in the way it does, the news is still giving out information, albeit, condensed, dumbed down information, a necessary evil if there is any hope of educating the majority of the public on what is happening in the world.
