|
in a more seemingly rational fashion.
I admit my post went to a place I didn't intend it to go. Poor wording? Poor tone? Poor connections? Poor framing? Whatever the reason, it went off track.
But I stand by my original intent.
AI, or any of the shows in that genre, or their viewers, are really not the issue. The issue is the seemingly collusive and considered morphing of these new reality shows into the 'news of the day'. AI differs mainly in the notion that the public gets to vote for the winners.
To look back a bit, I don't think anyone had anything more in mind than creating a cheap-to-produce show that sold lots of consumer crap. But when Survivor took off like a rocket. The imitators followed. As the buzz developed on Main Street, it was a quick leap to make the fake reality more real. It wasn't long before Survivor cast-offs were on what once were news shows. I watch the CBS morning show for no better reason that it follows my favorite early morning local news show. Some time ago, in place of actual news, there appeared a whole mini-Suvivor set and the 'newz' person sat down for what was to the unaided eye, a serious newz type interview with the cast-off du jour. Every week. Letterman, on the other hand, saw the silliness of it all, and refused to allow his show, unlike all the other talk and news shows on CBS, to be used as a cross-promo platform; Dave kept the 'survivor' off stage and interviewed the person in a very dismissive manner. The survivors no longer seem to be on his show.
Now, all of that can be - and probably should be - relegated to simple cross-promotion for the network's entertainment division. But in the last year or so, it has become so much more. Actual news shows, unrelated to the network carrying the actual fake reality show, have begun to give some serious coverage to them - as if they were, in fact, news. And that's kinda scary.
There was a report here on DU that MSNBC gave 45 minutes of coverage to American Idol. I didn't see it, so I can't vouch for the report. However, in watching MSNBC later in the day, the coverage was surely there. Not one 45 minute block, but certainly for a few minutes each half hour. Now, AI is a show on Fox's entertainment channel. Why, one might ask, was MSNBC covering it? The news value? That case can be made, to be sure. But the incredible depth and frequency of the coverage was much more akin to cross promotion than coverage of what, at best, is a popular culture story. And it surely could not have been for ratings, as some suggested. Were that the case, one would also have to see promos for the upcoming coverage. There was none. MSNBC was simply showing the tripe as .... news. I didn't watch, but I suspect CNN did pretty much the same. Fox covered it as well, I assume, but that's different. Its their show.
Further, just a week or two ago, there was a whole 'newsworthy' flap about some voting irregularities in the prefinal round of AI. Some 55,00 (I think it was) votes went either uncounted or wrongly counted due to some 'communications failure'. Does anyone not see the tragic irony in that? This 'irregularity' was not only covered as a news fact, it was ***investigated***. I'm sorry, but that is simply so far over the top that my hair hurts just thinking about it.
So you see, we have the media making harmless - and larely meaningless - television entertainment into serious news and even making an arcane bit of phone voting into a front page story.
For me, redemption was a follow-up story away. A comparison of that screw up with the 00, 02,and 04 cycles, with a look forward to 06. Responsible news would have done that.
So, there are only two conclusions that seem to follow. First - I am completely off base and need to check myself in. Second - I am not mistaken and there is, in fact, some collusion, intentional or otherwise, in making this tripe pass as news.
Bread and Circuses as Shiny Things. Intentionally so.
And if the intent is there, it was, as I said above, not the original intent. Rather, if the intent is there, it happened when 'someone' noticed the whole genre, noticed what was happening to its popularity on Main Street, and decided to try to make some use of the phenomenon. We know other events have been so capitalized upon. I see no reason to think this might not be the same case.
And people are following it.
It represents, if **nothing** else, a competition for any message we might wish to put forth.
A few people in the en fuego thread I started challenged me to compare this distraction to the distraction of sports. Was the AI finale not just the same as the Super Bowl? Or Game 7? Or the Belmont? Or the Stanley Cup?
In a word: No.
Sports' distractive nature is rightly worthy of its own thread. What seems germaine to this issue is that sports is virtually as old as mankind. Except for the big events, it occupies a set segment in the nation's newz delivery systems. It is so institutionalized that, indeed, it doesn't distract. It is, quite simply, just there.
AI, Et Al, is new. It can be argued that it is a growing insidious form of distraction. But if it is harmful for other than its inherent nature, something can be done about it. My thread was intended to ring that alarm bell.
It didn't.
For that, I am sorry.
|