The World Beyond BetterMost > Anything Goes
Topic Split: Media Coverage of Sensationalistic Events
nakymaton:
Can I put in a plug for my favorite news source, National Public Radio (www.npr.org, for people outside the US)? I don't get any television stations, so I get my news by listening to NPR while driving to and from work. And it doesn't hype the disappearance of young white blondes, and the discussion of the spinach scare has included both short pieces explaining what's happened and where, and longer pieces discussing the impact of the bans on farms in California.
I love NPR. It's thought-provoking, it's interesting, it feeds my curiosity about the world without leaving me with this sense of ever-present, ever-changing danger that I get from five minutes of CNN/MSNBC/Fox, or from the network news programs.
Oh, and the morning program has movie reviews from Kenneth Turan, who was my favorite movie critic even before he criticized last year's Oscars. ;D
And before I transform into the electronic equivalent of a fund drive, I'll get out of here. ;D
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on September 23, 2006, 02:18:01 pm ---People who are killed by cancer or cars is not news. Thousands if not hundreds of thousands die this way every year. People who get killed in unusual circumstances - planes, spinach, WTC, etc, even though the number is much smaller - IS news, simply because of the dramatic rarity.
--- End quote ---
Right, Del. That is exactly the point I was trying to make earlier regarding spinach.
And I agree that the vacation-sland angle made the Natalee story more newsy. But many of those blonde white girls who've gone missing over the years weren't in Aruba, and some nonwhite girls probably disappear while on vacation. I think there is a tendency for journalists to assume that the disappearances of white girls are shocking and those of nonwhite girls are easily explainable and/or routine.
When I was a newspaper reporter in New Orleans, a city that is two-thirds black, I saw that phenomenon a lot. It's probably not usually deliberate or even conscious, to give the benefit of the doubt, but it happens.
Giancarlo:
--- Quote from: latjoreme on September 23, 2006, 02:43:45 pm ---Right, Del. That is exactly the point I was trying to make earlier regarding spinach.
And I agree that the vacation-sland angle made the Natalee story more newsy. But many of those blonde white girls who've gone missing over the years weren't in Aruba, and some nonwhite girls probably disappear while on vacation. I think there is a tendency for journalists to assume that the disappearances of white girls are shocking and those of nonwhite girls are easily explainable and/or routine.
When I was a newspaper reporter in New Orleans, a city that is two-thirds black, I saw that phenomenon a lot. It's probably not usually deliberate or even conscious, to give the benefit of the doubt, but it happens.
--- End quote ---
I still strongly disagree with you on several factors. I didn't say "don't report this". I'm saying don't make a big media circus out of it because it clearly isn't.
Phillip Dampier:
--- Quote from: nakymaton on September 23, 2006, 02:37:55 pm ---Can I put in a plug for my favorite news source, National Public Radio (www.npr.org, for people outside the US)? I don't get any television stations, so I get my news by listening to NPR while driving to and from work. And it doesn't hype the disappearance of young white blondes, and the discussion of the spinach scare has included both short pieces explaining what's happened and where, and longer pieces discussing the impact of the bans on farms in California.
--- End quote ---
For those unaware, NPR is probably the closest thing we have to an ABC in Australia, BBC in the UK, RTE in Ireland, CBC in Canada, NOS in the Netherlands, NRK in Norway, Deutschlandfunk in Germany, SR in Sweden, etc. In short, it's not state radio but public radio and television. It is a private corporation not associated with the government. A great many of their programs are available for podcast, download, live listening, etc.
Unfortunately, the external services of the United States government, such as the Voice of America have been under assault since the Bush Administration came to power and installed Kenneth Tomlinson (who also wormed his way into the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for awhile) who is now under investigation for corruption. Tomlinson is a proponent of using government broadcasting in the "war on terror" which is shorthand for propaganda. No one is more upset about this than VOA employees themselves who have relied on a firewall between government and broadcasting since VOA's inception in 1942. VOA and the now many surrogate radio outlets coordinated by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (Radio Free Asia, Europe, Liberty + Radio Farda, Radio/TV Marti, etc.) simply don't have the prestige of the BBC any longer.
But perhaps it is time to split this into its own thread....
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Giancarlo on September 23, 2006, 04:53:17 pm ---I still strongly disagree with you on several factors. I didn't say "don't report this". I'm saying don't make a big media circus out of it because it clearly isn't.
--- End quote ---
I'm sorry, Giancarlo, but I don't understand what your point is here. If you're still talking about sensationalizing spinach, fine, whatever. If you're talking about missing girls, then I'm not sure we even disagree.
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