arianna ...yes!

[Jon Ford]

Bob-- good article! It supports my decision no longer to watch TV news at 
all.
Jon


>From: "telebob x" <telebob98@hotmail.com>
>To: austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net
>Subject: arianna ...yes!
>Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 18:35:58 +0000
>
>
>The Gary Conditization Of The Terror Story
>Filed October 24, 2001
>We interrupt our regularly scheduled column for the following fast-breaking
>public safety alert: Watching the news may be hazardous to your health --
>and may be damaging the well-being of our entire nation. In much the same
>way that the terrorists hijacked our airplanes and turned them into flying
>bombs, they are now on the verge of successfully hijacking our airwaves.
>
>What we are witnessing is the Gary Conditization of the most important 
>story
>of our time.
>
>We all know the recipe by now: Take 10 minutes of actual news, mix in
>heaping portions of breathless reporting, rampant rumors, baseless
>speculation, twitchy, nerve-racking crawls and hours-old "breaking news,"
>stir repeatedly, overheat for as long as possible and, voila, there you 
>have
>it -- enough toxic filler to feed the 24-hour news beast. Broadcast
>immediately (definitely don't let it cool). Serves 280 million.
>
>After a slow news decade during which the media became addicted to
>overhyping trashy, insignificant stories, they now have an unprecedented
>opportunity to inform and enlighten us on a truly significant one. Sadly,
>they can't seem to wean themselves off the tactics they resorted to in the
>dark days of stained dresses, shark attacks and, yes, Gary Condit.
>
>Take the anthrax story. Last week, we were told so often about the 31 
>people
>-- now down to 28 -- in the Hart Senate Office Building who had "tested
>positive" for exposure that you couldn't help but wonder if these were the
>same 31 folks or a fresh batch. You also couldn't help but wonder how many
>Americans were clear that "testing positive" did not mean "infected."
>
>The correct military and diplomatic response to terror can -- and, I assure
>you, will -- be debated endlessly, but the correct media response is beyond
>dispute. The news outlets have a patriotic duty not to fan the fires of
>terror and spread bio-panic across the country just to fan their own
>ratings.
>
>As Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., said last week, anthrax "is not a weapon of 
>mass
>destruction, it is a weapon of mass confusion." And if the news media
>mandarins don't curb their appetite for sensation, mass confusion can 
>easily
>become mass hysteria.
>
>After their commendable performance in the days immediately following the
>attacks, the media are falling back on their old, familiar, monomaniacal
>ways. Like a binge drinker who gives up booze but takes up chain smoking,
>the media have traded their addiction to Condit for an addiction to terror.
>
>The same media that neglected the terrorism story for years are now acting
>like there's nothing else to report -- or to be concerned about. But, of
>course, there is. For instance, while we've heard endless details about the
>cutaneous infections suffered by Tom Brokaw's and Dan Rather's
>soon-to-be-once-again-fully-healthy assistants, there has been almost no
>coverage of the victims of the sharp increase in violent crime since Sept.
>11 in many cities across the country. Philadelphia, for example, has seen a
>28 percent increase in homicides while the murder rate in Washington, D.C.,
>is up 35 percent. And Baltimore has had 19 homicides so far this month.
>
>"Police can only be in so many places at the same time," explains Jack
>Levin, director of the Brudnick Center on Violence at Northeastern
>University. Fair enough -- but what's the media's excuse? They, it seems,
>can only be in the same place at the same time.
>
>Their newly minted obsession with all terrorism all the time has also
>exacerbated the media's already-troubling habit of running with the hot, 
>new
>story. "1,000 civilians have been killed" by U.S. air strikes, CNN
>repeatedly reported last week, while adding that "there's no way to verify
>that 1,000 number." Then why report it? Just because there is airtime to
>fill?
>
>Paradoxically, with All Terror TV, the more you watch, the less you know. A
>kind of news tunnel vision sets in. And then there is the hypnotic quality
>of today's frantically busy TV screens. "Headline News," with its restless
>news tickers and compressed video screen ("News! Sports! Weather! Anthrax!
>All at one time!"), has begun to look more like the heads-up display of an
>F-15 than a television show. As the frenetic factoids race across the 
>bottom
>of the screen, the impression you are left with is that there are simply 
>too
>many important things happening to report by conventional means.
>
>It's ironic that this apotheosis of flash over substance comes at a time
>when the public is hungering for greater perspective and deeper
>understanding. When the focus of the coverage has become as narrow and
>repetitive as it currently is, there is no room left for any reference
>points beyond the immediate and the episodic.
>
>"It is like the beam of a searchlight," wrote Walter Lippman in the 1920s,
>"that moves relentlessly about, bringing one episode and then another out 
>of
>darkness into vision. Men cannot do their work by this light alone."
>
>Nor can the American people remain strong, brave and hopeful if our public
>square remains dominated by a media culture that trivializes whatever it
>touches and, on a daily basis, weakens our collective immune system with
>shallow, obsessive, toxic reporting.
>
>Discuss this column and more in the Forum
>
>
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>


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