The Big Story

In my office, there are a couple TVs on the wall, one of which is always tuned to Fox News [sic]. I was just walking by one of them a few days and it was the Fox show The Big Story. So what was their big story? Their most important issue of the day? Key developments in Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program? The apparent center-left victory in the Italian elections? Repression in Nepal? How about the immigration so-called issue, something perfectly in line with Fox's trademark fear mongering?

No. Their lead story, the most important issue of the day in their esteemed editorial judgement, was about the Duke lacrosse team.

Then again, this is the 'fair and balanced' network where one of their anchors unashamedly referred to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia as 'our guy'... in a purported NEWS segment.

It would be easy to bash Fox for something like this; Lord knows they deserve it. However, it would be a mistake to think that such inanity is limited to Rupert Murdoch's channel.

This is symbolic of everything that's wrong with cable so-called news channels: the obsession with flash, pizazz and sex. They give blanket coverage to things that, when not downright trite, are really micro-stories that merit barely more than a few seconds on a national television channel.

Chandra Levy. JonBenet Ramsey. Elizabeth Smart. That girl in Alabama who was abducted in the Carribbean. I spent a few seconds humanely hoping they'd all return safe and sound. But did I care enough to watch hours and hours of tedious, repetitive, redundant, n... e... v... e... r... e... n...d...i...n...g... coverage? No.

It would be perfectly reasonable for channels local to those areas to give those stories a lot of play. It would've been fine to do a story or two on national television. But do we really need hours, days and weeks of saturation NATIONAL 'news' coverage for every photogenic white girl that gets kidnapped? For every bunch of spoiled rich college athletes who behave badly? The 'respectable' news media establishment looks their noses down on the trailer trash appeal of Jerry Springer, pro wrestling and The New York Post. But is cable news really that different?

When the cable news era exploded, there was great promise. Civic-minded folks hoped that it would mark a new dawn in serious journalism, not restricted to the tight 22 minute format of the evening news or the once a week format of 60 Minutes. But now that the news media is dominated by gigantic entertainment corporations, it's no surprise that the line between news and entertainment on television has all but vanished. It's no surprise that 24 hour 'news' channels are suffocated by vapid, meaningless pap.

Local newspapers are little better. On April 5, readers of the Glens Falls Post-Star were titilated with a non-story about renters who seek roommates interested 'sex and light office duty.' From a wire service and about San Francisco, despite the daily's indignant pretentions that it focuses on local issues. Surprisingly, no drool towel was inserted in the paper for the readers' benefit. While this voyeuristic tabloidism adorned the front page, a tiny snipet about one of the northeast's largest states (neighboring Massachussetts) adopting a universal health insurance program merited only four sentences... on page two... just above an equally sized list of pop stars on postage stamps. I don't dispute the presence of fluff in newspapers; it just needs to be prioritized appropriately.

We no longer feed humans to lions in order to numb the masses. The Bill O'Reillys, Larry Kings and Geraldo Riveras serve that purpose just fine.