It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta to do it...!
Once an adage, now a joke, the idea actually applies to a great many jobs. Right now I'm thinking the news media. Once one of the pillars of a free society, today the media are seen by many as the messenger worse than the message. Faith in the mass media has fallen lower than that of Congress, and that in itself is a message.
Here's the problem. The message -- the daily drone of news -- is virtually the same day to day and year to year. Lets admit it, the stories never really change; just the names. Drug bust...gang fight...domestic violence...hit-and-run...graft in high places...pol caught cheating...celebrity in rehab...gridlock in Washington. Which is why the messenger -- print, television, Internet -- is forever looking for some outrageous way to package it for an easily distracted audience.
OK, got it....! This is why your explosive headlines, melodramatic lead-ins, gaggle of 24/7 websites. And yet even you have become predictable. Come on, fellas, you're predictably always going for the most embarrassing gaffe, the most lurid scene, the most contentious moment, the smarmiest off-camera details, oh and of course the prettiest face.
All right, we get the hook. And sometimes we even bite. However, there's a limit to even our gullibility. The same-old-same-old eventually wears bare-thread thin. Occasionally our jaded appetites crave for messages -- and messengers -- who can lift us out of the mud! shine a light on something higher! offer a boost toward something better! Right now all you're giving us are a few 2-inch columns on page 12 and a cuddly 60-second human-interest tag at the end of the newscast.
Not enough to satisfy this hunger. This appetite for something good about our strange struggling species. Look, you guys have just such messages somewhere in your filler files. Maybe the time has finally come to try leading with them. What do you have to lose? In case you haven't noticed, you haven't much left to lose; but a lot to gain. Just try us....
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Sometimes it is hard to believe that all those pretty faces, along with, at least locally, the extreme nasal vocal delivery, are gradutes of some journalism school! I DO get distracted and switch channels to look for a game show.
ReplyDeleteLeading with a POSITIVE story....now that is a newscast I would be very interested in watching! While I like to stay informed, it's a little difficult when all the news is bad and or scandalous!
ReplyDeleteJerry ~ at our age we share the same irritations.
ReplyDeleteMarion ~ wouldn't it be great to see someone actually try??