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Foolish news overshadows real issues

Editorial cartoon by Jacob Bogdanoff and Des Delgadillo
editorial cartoon by Jacob Bogdanoff and Des Delgadillo

What began as a slow news day quickly became an internet free for all a few weeks ago, after some llamas got loose and a dress left people baffled. But as much as the headlines proclaimed the “Alpacalypse” or “What color is this dress?” the real takeaway from the most recent media frenzy sees too much focus on the absurd and too little on substance.

After a pair of llamas escaped a trailer just outside of Phoenix, Arizona, they ran rampant not only through the streets of Arizona, but into the hearts of millions of people watching on television and online. Virtually every media outlet ran some kind of llama-related story that day, and it was not long before “Llama drama” memes stampeded through the mean streets of cyber space. It was, in a word, adorable.

But it was also entirely too much. Major media outlets like CNN appeared to spend entirely too much time trying to assemble witty llama puns and entirely too little time covering the possible Homeland Security shutdown. National media outlets should spend less time chasing llamas and more time chasing stories that matter, leaving the cute stuff to the Buzzfeeds of the world.

Llamas were quickly put on the back burner later that same day as a photo of a dress caught major traction online, igniting a passionate discussion about whether the dress is white and gold or black and blue. It was a colorful discourse where some friends became enemies and enemies became friends, including some pretty reputable news anchors.

“#TheDress” exploded the internet, but the FCC’s net neutrality proposition—which basically saved the internet—went comparatively overlooked. Thankfully the FCC has decided to preserve net neutrality, which means we can expect more memes about llamas and threads about threads to keep cluttering our news feeds.

The trends in current media are both entertaining and frightening, with a set of priorities in need of more organizing than a teenager’s bedroom. Feature stories like “The 30 best selfies this week” do not belong anywhere near CNN, yet there they are, turning a once reputable news site into something that resembles a middle schooler’s Twitter account. There is a difference between stories that focus on human interest and insufferable clickbait that if unsupervised will eat away at how our generation respects real news.

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Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Campus Times Editorial Board.

Jacob Bogdanoff
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