Print media
disgrace
Todd Munson is a junior f* #
broadcasting major and QQ J /I Tfl
a Daily Nebraskan A// v/l COO v\//
columnist, X #
Don’t you love it when the enigma known as
the media refers to itself as “The Media”?
Every so often, with growing regularity, the
tech-geeks from TV news-fiends at newspapers,
and die savvy linguistic stylists at magazines call
their practices and methods of news gathering
into question.
I really hate to beat a dead horse, or at least a
dead princess, but when Princess Diana was
killed, it was gut-check time for the media.
On TV and in print, journalists questioned
whether or not they stepped past the line in caus
ing her death. It was kind of like daring your kid
brother to shoot your youngest sister with a
slingshot When he hits her just right, or wrong
for that matter, and accidentally kills her, whose
fault is it? Yours for daring him to shoot her or
his for actually going through with it?
A good example of this analogy comes from
ABC’s Sam Donaldson during the first week of
the Monica Lewinsky bit As is the case with
news organizations, reporters don’t appear at an
event on their own, they are sent there by order
of a superior. During a weekend edition of
“Nightline,” Sammy wowed viewers with a story
that took them behind the scenes. What unfolded
was a literal media mosh pit
Sam pointed out ABC’s front line camera
man. He was in the thick of it, swinging elbows
and shoving people as if he woe at a White
Zombie concert instead of the White House
lawn. Donaldson’s narration explained why the
cameraman was such a bad sport: “If he doesn’t
get that shot, he answers directly to the news
chief. He doesn’t want that to happen.”
There was Sam Donaldson, on national tele
vision, telling viewers ABC News does whatever
necessary to get the picture or the perfect sound
bite.
But let’s get back to Princess Di.
Her death put the media in an interesting
position. With their mighty egos begging to be
bruised, die “respectable” journalists of America
pointed the finger at their red-headed stepbroth
er, the paparazzi. Both TV and print joined
hands for a moment and told the vultures of
journalism to go to hell.
The paparazzi stayed in hell a few short
days.
Every major television news organization
ran stories about the paparazzi in action. Most of
the video used in their stories came from file
footage. Hmm... to get pictures of the
paparazzi in action, one must be near the
paparazzi at the same event. But, the network
news is obviously much better, because they ^
don’t sell their story or video to the highest >
bidder. Instead, they just charge the bejeezus *
out of advertisers.
I wasn’t the only one who noticed. J
Newspapers lambasted television for giving the *
paparazzi so much exposure.
Recently, though, The Associated Press did a
nice impersonation of the paparazzi when they
sent some of their reporters to cover Monica
Lewinsky’s stay in Los Angeles. They followed
her every move, so closely that the driver of the
AP’s vehicle rear-ended the van in which
Lewinsky was traveling. That sounds more like
stalking than news reporting.
I’ll admit TV sucks, especially the news, but
newspapers suck worse.
As a broadcasting student, I ve taken a
good-natured crap. “Go report for ‘Hard Copy,’ i
you talking head,” they say.
“Go write for the‘Weekly Worid News’or
take photos for ‘People,’” I retort. '
I believe die hostility manifests itself from
the fact news-ed people are jealous of those
majoring in broadcasting. Writing a story is
ridiculously easy. If something isn’t correct, just
revise it until it flows like the mighty Platte
River. Before I started writing this column, I had
no experience with working at a newspaper. I
would like to see a newspaper reporter go shoot
a story for a television newscast, write it, edit it
together and finally report it live with no back
space key to be there in case he or she screws up.
Finally, we’re prettier and in the cooler side
of die media.
The last time America went to war, did you
wait until the morning paper to find out what
happened? No. You tamed on CNN and watched
it live courtesy of the broadcast media. Did you
ever stop to think how much of a pain in the butt
it was to arrange a live satellite broadcast while a
war was happening all around you? Could a
newspaper reporter keep his composure die way
Peter Arnett did during die bombing of
Baghdad? You’d think his blood was morphine
by how calmly he looked out his hotel window
and gave a bomb-by-bomb commentary as
buildings were blowing up mere blocks awry.
How about the “Miracle in Missouri” What
did you think was more exciting, soiling your
pants as you watched it live and drooling at the
many replays from different angles, or reading
about it the next day?
Or how about the Winter Olympics? The
written word of a sportswriter couldn’t match
the excitement of watching Picabo Street bomb
down a mountain with her ovaries hanging out,
on her way to her first giant slalom victory and a
gold medal.
Fans of newspapers argue television is a
fleeting moment, gone in the blink of an eye, but
a newspaper can be saved and kept for posterity.
The only saved newspapers I ever saw were used
to line my cat Spud’s litter box back at my moth
er’s place.
And what print folks are most jealous of is
the entertainment television provides. What’s
more fun, reading a story by some kook who
uses words larger than a school bus, or watching
the “Late Show with David Letterman” as
Monica Lewinsky suck-starts a Harley Davidson
on “Stupid Human Tricks”? Sweet glorious tele
vision, is there anything you can’t do?
But if newspapers suck so bad, then why am
I here?
For the money, baby. Oh yeah... sweet beau
tiful cash.
Broadcast
journalists
taint mprlia ^.“'c“‘v4s
l/H/l/l W # I MSU/Hi/ major and a Daily
Nebraskan columnist
You know who’s been getting on my nerves
lately? Journalists.
(Take a long look at your tagline, Cliff.)
Oh, I see that! Believe me, I’m hoping the
whole profession overhauls itself before I get too
tangled up in it I’m starting to lose respect for it
But die more we move forward, the faster
people want information. So when die news hap
pens, they want it right then. Right then.
Even he broadcast media has delays of some
kind. The Internet is die worst, because as fast as
you can get something typed in, people can access
it It doesn’t even have to be done happening yet
The same for broadcast journalists. They, in
my not-so-humble opinion, rank toward the bot
tom of the food chain along with algae. Maybe
lower, I haven’t yet heard algae he, but you see
something new every day.
See, it Is not that broadcast journalists are bad
people. Some of my best friends are broadcast
journalists. I know quite a few of them. Itb just the
profession itself that is inherently wrong.
Sometimes they jump the gun;
“News flash! I’m Stone Phelps! Someone’s
just been shot! Let’s go to our correspondent on
the scene, Mountain Warst! Mountain?”
“Thanks, Stone! We don’t know who has
been shot yet, but there has been a shooting in the
restaurant Police aren’t on the scene yet, but we
already have someone inside, Bluff Faks. Bluff?”
“Thanks, Mountain! I’m in the kitchen of the
Late Dinner where we believeagimshot has gone off.
We’re going to peek into the mam dining roan now”
“What does he see, Mountain?”
“I don’t know, Stone. What do you see, Bluff?”
“Oh, it looks like ... oh, it was merely some
plates falling.”
“We apolo
gize for
the
interrup
tion and
now
I
return you to your regularly scheduled program.”
A lot of times they retract what they say.
“Hi, I’m Forrest Winter, and everything we
told you last hour is false. During this hour...”
And we ah know broadcast mecfe is objective...
“Welcome to our special - ‘The President:
World Leader or the Man Who Can’t Keep It In
His Pants And Is Going To Be The Father Of Half
OfThe Next Generation Of Our Country?’
“Next week- ‘The Iraq Crisis: Can’t Saddam
See We’re Going to Kick His Ass?’”
They never dwell too long cm anything, do they?
“We interrupt your regularly scheduled
Oralgate update to bring you an episode of ‘ER.’”
And they certainly don’t compete for ratings.
“We have a total of SIX people here to debate
the OJ. Simpson trial today, instead of all those
OTHER networks, who only have THREE.”.
Or “News so fresh, we almost made it our
selves. Tonight: Our cameraman is arrested for
smashing in the window of a police cruiser.
Should she have been incarcerated, or is this
restricting die freedom of the press?”
And has anyone noticed the talking heads on
these news shows are getting more generic?
“Good evening. I’m John Brown, this is Julie
Smith, and you’re watching ‘Plain-Label News.’”
Pretty soon, all we’ll have are a pair of com
puter-generated faces that are custom-designed
for die type of news we want to watch.
And is it REALLY necessary to watch every
moment of a war? Like, for example, the Persian
GulfWar. Amidst all the cries of “This is for your
own good!” and “You people want to see it!’V.I
was left at home, entranced by all the violence
and death, wondering where was the compassion
ofman. Where was the human face of it?
Why was the war footage interspersed with
beer commercials and football stats?
Instead of seeing the horror of war, I got to
watch rockets fire, troopers say what a great tiling
they were doing and shots of the survivors walk
ing with their hands on their heads. Oh, great.
Score one for the good guys. News isn’t news
anymore - it’s entertainment.
Let’s not exclude radio from this, either.
Everything is becoming talkradk) these days.
People want to call in and argue about every
thing. Radio stations are branching out then*
news hours, even doubling them in some cases,
to allow them to take calls from “die people
affected.” So instead of getting 20 minutes of
things you want to know, you get five minutes of
tilings you want to know and 35 minutes of opin
ions from some yahoos you couldn’t give two
cloned sheep droppings about.
“Well, let me tell ya what I think about that
dum feller we got up thar’ in th’ Ovary Office!”
I’d really rather you didn’t, sir. Thanks, though.
And I can’t say the print media isn’t guilty of
this. Heck, what do you think we have headlines for?
In giant letters you see “COLUMNIST
KILLS THOUSANDS!” and beneath it you see
in teeny-tiny letters “then realizes it is merely a
dream.”
I would also be remiss if I didn’t lambaste the
McPaper, USA Today. \ '
“Eighty-four percent of America thinks 48
percent of the 32 percent of you reading this have
no clue what 08 percent of American butchers
think about coffee grinds!” Uh, what?
It’s divided up into so many graphs, charts,
pictorials, expanded cutaway detailings and thor
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sure there’s a writer working there somewhere.
And we in the print media are guilty of cover
ing something to death just as much as anyone
else. I’m still seeing “Di-ploitation Watch” in
Time every few weeks. Itfc over, ladies and gents,
shels dead. Deaf with it.
So what am I doing going into the media?
Think of me as the Martin Luther to the Catholic
Church of Mass Media. I’m gonna rebuild this
house from the ground up. I’m gonna reform the
whole business. I’m gonna change the way the
media works!
Or maybe I’ll just write a book about it and go
on “Good Morning, America.”
AmyMartin/DN