Journalistic Foci
Okay, so it's been a while. But I haven't changed, and neither has the LA Times, so the posts'll be along the same lines even now. For example, we got a lower-right Front Page story "The Iraq war, spliced for a YouTube world." OK, so this article's not as bad as most, and any anti-war sentiments are implied, and it takes some thinking to get there, actually. But the real kicker paragraph comes near the end:
"When a bombing happens in another city, it's a big deal," he said. "When it happens here, people [in the rest of the world] are used to it. The think, 'OK, so another 100 people died.'"
I bet most of you don't realize what kind of gold has come with this quote. The key here is the media reporting the war. Most headlines are ignorant of all else save one thing - how many died. What was the cause, who committed the injustice, and were any of our troops involved in bringing the perpetrators to justice at the time?
Who knows, and who cares, because to the Mainstream, Drive-By Media, all that matters is the dead. And if all that's reported in the media is who died, OF COURSE people throughout the world are only going to think "oh, more have died!"
But the saddest part is, this is no journalistic agenda. This is the essense of journalism itself. If it bleeds, it ledes, but only because, as the journalistic mentality goes, people close to the individual need to know. That is why people, en masse, are against the Iraq War - their attention spans are so short, all they have time to know is who died, and ergo to them that's all that happens. Because people are too busy to read about the merits of our troops' good an valiant actions, they come away with a false impression of the war that hurts reality.
And young, budding journalists are taught from day one that the very first thing they should mention, should it happen, are deaths from an incident. I should know. I was in that introductory class.
Welcome to your special World of Journalism.
"When a bombing happens in another city, it's a big deal," he said. "When it happens here, people [in the rest of the world] are used to it. The think, 'OK, so another 100 people died.'"
I bet most of you don't realize what kind of gold has come with this quote. The key here is the media reporting the war. Most headlines are ignorant of all else save one thing - how many died. What was the cause, who committed the injustice, and were any of our troops involved in bringing the perpetrators to justice at the time?
Who knows, and who cares, because to the Mainstream, Drive-By Media, all that matters is the dead. And if all that's reported in the media is who died, OF COURSE people throughout the world are only going to think "oh, more have died!"
But the saddest part is, this is no journalistic agenda. This is the essense of journalism itself. If it bleeds, it ledes, but only because, as the journalistic mentality goes, people close to the individual need to know. That is why people, en masse, are against the Iraq War - their attention spans are so short, all they have time to know is who died, and ergo to them that's all that happens. Because people are too busy to read about the merits of our troops' good an valiant actions, they come away with a false impression of the war that hurts reality.
And young, budding journalists are taught from day one that the very first thing they should mention, should it happen, are deaths from an incident. I should know. I was in that introductory class.
Welcome to your special World of Journalism.
posted by Geewhiz at 8:07 AM
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