The lead story on Good Morning, America today was the death of five Americans in Afghanistan, likely the result of friendly fire. The second story was Robin Roberts' interview with Hillary Clinton. The third story was a high-speed police chase and stand-off in Los Angeles. Really, ABC? This is really the third most important thing happening in America this morning?
Well, you say, it's big news because of all the people the driver shot when he finally got out of his car. Nope, no one got hurt. Oh. Well, then, it's because of the six-car pile-up that happened when the driver crashed into a semi-truck. No, no crash. Oh. Well, it's news because the suspect killed himself, blew up the house he was hiding in and took out half the neighborhood. Nope again. He eventually walked out of the house and followed police instructions to prostrate himself on the ground.
So why, exactly, was this considered "news"? Because there was video.
Contrast that with the Amy Van Dyken story. Van Dyken, who won six Olympic gold medals in swimming at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics, had an accident in an ATV on Friday and severed her spine. That sounds pretty serious and I was expecting ABC to cover it on this morning's show. (There was no info about the accident over the week-end, it just started to come out last night.) GMA mentioned it eventually, but not until the 8.00 hour, which is less about hard news and more about boy bands and cute kitten videos. Why wasn't it covered in the "hard news" section at 7.00? No video. If there had been dramatic, scary and, to use one of GMA's favorite words, "terrifying" cellphone video of the accident it probably have been the lead story.
The phrase I use to describe all this is "dumbed down and sexed up." That pretty much describes the information we get from all commercially-sponsored, ratings-driven media, whether it's TV news, cable news, websites, dead-tree magazines or yes, snarky bloggers. A high speed police chase can be exciting to watch but is it news? Not even close.
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2 comments:
A better question to consider might be: what news (in the US and the World) did GMA not cover and why?
Who are the gatekeepers? Why does GMA report on Disney so much? (Disney owns ABC) When viewers better understand that advertising and business drive news decisions, they become smarter more media literate viewers.
I agree, Frank. In the end it comes down to ratings and ad revenues.
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