I fear this blog is a rant...

CHAPTER 6 - Media in Everyday Life
Call me a cynic. It's okay; it's what I call myself. In ENGL 852, I was nicknamed "queen of cynicism." It's as close to royalty as I'll ever get.

Having worked in public relations and corporate communication over the past couple of decades, the least favorite part of my job was dealing with the media. When I left work to return to school, I explained to my friends and family: "I used to have a healthy cynicism of the media. Now it's grown into an unhealthy disdain." A PR professional who disdains the media cannot do her best job.

The pervasiveness of the media described by Sturken and Cartwright includes a "plurality of media forms" like news, entertainment, radio, television, film, the Internet, etc. (229). I find it interesting that the authors include the generic term, "entertainment," among the forms, as the recent proliferation of forms all seem designed to entertain the audience.

Entertainment is not necessarily enjoyment. The Oxford American Dictionary provides the Latin roots of the word as inter, meaning "among," and tenere, meaning "to hold." So it doesn't have to please us; it just has to capture our attention. The ways in which it seeks to do so is what causes me to be cynical.

Recent crises, including the 9/11 terrorist attacks discussed on page 252, although I hesitate to lump this spectacularly tragic event with examples of lesser magnitude, provide opportunities for reflection. The media's seemingly insatiable quest to be first on the scene or first with a report, the first to capture an audience and keep them from "touching that dial (or remote)" has sacrificed accuracy for speed, content for context. Errors in news reporting seem acceptable; they can always be corrected later. It seems we hear a grand number of "unconfirmed reports." Isn't that just reporting rumors?

Perhaps I am in the minority, but while I would like to know what has happened, I don't want "unconfirmed reports." This expediency in news reporting parallels Katz's "The Ethic of Expediency," familiar to all MAPC students, albeit in a different context. But isn't throwing a report together to get it on the air first, rather than correct, much the same means to an end?

Perhaps the delay inherent in press/paper journalism is why I place more trust in getting a thoughtful and realistic account of a news story from a traditional newspaper. Even online news sites are changing their stories minute by minute, correcting as they go. It is easier to shut down the computer and wait till they've got all their ducks in a row before going back to ascertain what has occurred.

In addition, the media's attempt at democratization, by taking the microphone to the street during such crises, to get the eyewitness's account, subjects the audience to all manner of oratory. The speaker, in this case, has developed no ethos. What does she or he bring to the event, short of serendipitous proximity?

News as entertainment proliferates in contemporary pop culture. Was I the only person in America completely baffled by Katie Couric making her widely touted debut on the CBS Evening News by headlining a first look at newborn Suri Cruise? And if I'm interested in who's the latest American Idol, I would probably watch the TV show (I have yet to do so).

Kenneth Burke acknowledges, in Permancence and Change, that all language is motivation, that all speech is biased. However, there was once, I believe, an ethos in journalism, my undergraduate program of study, that strove for an objective, or at least a "both sides of the story" viewpoint. Its intent was to present facts, not to form opinion, nor to analyze. Analysis and opinion took a different form: the editorial.

The contemporary mass media seems quite comfortable in airing their biases. Thus, we have a predominantly right-wing viewpoint in FoxNews, a left-wing viewpoint in CNN, and with the other major USA networks, one can pretty much pinpoint the centrism or liberalism or conservatism within a few moments of tuning in to a particular news show, anchor person, or reporter.

Of course, with the advent of the World Wide Web, anyone can speak (if they have access, Mssr. Foucault), anyone can blog, and anyone can read whatever anyone has to write, say, film, sing, post -- but do we really do that? Or do we gravitate to those blogsites and bloggers and newsfeeds and online newspapers, etc., that share the lens with which we already view our world? I know I do. I read a few lines, think -- well I sure am not on that wavelength -- and surfing I go! The same goes when I'm flipping TV channels, or tuning into radio stations on a long car trip.

Driving back to Clemson from Charlotte last week, after having listened to President Obama's inaugural speech, I tuned into several stations offering commentary, sometimes pondering whether the on-air pundit actually heard the same speech as I. So I turn the dial. I'm more apt to deflect any media opinion that might differ from my own.