Sometimes I’m ashamed to admit I’m a journalist. When people ask me what I’m studying in school and I tell them journalism, I often get a strange reaction. Countless times, I’ve heard people stutter, “Oh…that must be, uh, interesting.”
In today’s media sensitive world, journalists have gotten a bad reputation, and it isn’t hard to see why. All it takes to make that assumption is one glance at any local television newscast.
Instead of the hard-hitting, investigative news of the past, broadcast journalism has become wrought with sensationalism and soft, human interest stories.
Not a day has gone by in the past year that O.J. Simpson hasn’t been one of the top stories of the local newscasts. It was news when Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were killed, it was news when O.J. was arrested for the murders, and it is even news that he is currently on trial, but is all the coverage really necessary?
Granted, many people are interested in the daily proceedings of the trial, but there are many other news stories that warrant some of the extensive coverage this trial is receiving.
Last week, the trial and the record heat wave in Southern California dominated each and every newscast, although there were several other more important news stories unfolding at the same time.
In the last week, Colin Powell increased his interest in running for the Republican nomination in 1996; Iraq finally admitted to having advanced chemical weapons; Los Angeles disclosed its plans to shut down a number of county hospitals; and the Federal Government decided to investigate the siege on Ruby Ridge. Unfortunately, these stories received little or no attention from local broadcasters.
The decision about whether to play the Mark Furman tapes to the Simpson jury came down on the second day of heavy airstrikes in Bosnia. KNBC, Channel 4, dedicated over 20 minutes to the Fuhrman tapes at the top of both the 4 and 5 p.m. newscasts, and spent maybe 30 seconds discussing the explosive situation in the former Yugoslavia.
Sad to say, this is not unusual for television news. Rarely is world news, or sometimes even national news, reported anymore. A person could remain totally ignorant of the world around him unless he makes a point to watch a network’s world news report, which is usually only offered 30 minutes a day, or tunes into the world report on CNN.
When newscasters are not discussing O.J., the news is dominated by local stories of violence or politics. Adults often wonder why school children can’t name any world leaders besides Bill Clinton or don’t know where Bosnia or Kuwait is, but by watching local news, it is difficult even to realize that there is a world outside of Southern California.
Of course, the problems with local news is not the media’s fault alone. Just like in any other industry, the media relies on public opinion and ratings to survive. Obviously, the public wants to see O.J. and sensationalized local stories, or these types of stories would not dominate the news.
Television news has become a source of entertainment. People watch the O.J. trial as religiously as they watch their favorite sitcom. Stories filled with violence and gore reminiscent of Hollywood blockbusters top most newscasts and garner high ratings.
So, if the public wants to see these kinds of stories, why does it criticize the media for being sensational? Why does the public often have such contempt for journalists?
Without a mass media, the public would truly be uniformed and ignorant. I don’t see myself as having a future in the sensational world of journalism. Instead, I see myself as an informer and an educator to many people.
While I may be ashamed of what I view on television newscasts, or even read in newspapers, I have nothing but the highest respect for mass media. Nothing else in our world can have as much effect on the public and the community around us as even a solitary newscast.
