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The following are predictable NYC media events.

  1. Every single August there is a spell of unbelievably hot sweltering temperatures with high humidity.
  2. Every single August the NY broadcasters run lead, secondary, and tertiary stories telling you that it is hot outside, and that you have to wear light clothing, avoid heatstroke and dehydration, sit inside in an air conditioned room, and drink cold drinks without alcohol. They interview pedestrians affirming that it is hot outside.
  3. Every single February there is a spell of unbelievably cold frigid temperatures with frostbiting wind chills.
  4. Every single February the NY broadcasters run lead, secondary, and tertiary stories telling you that it is cold outside, and that you have to wear layered warm clothing, avoid frostbite and hypothermia, sit inside in a heated room, and drink warm drinks without alcohol. They interview pedestrians affirming that it is cold outside.
  5. Every single August and February I and other NY news media types cringe at the fatuity of these stories, and complain about doing this tripe.
  6. Finally, every single August and February I and other NY news media types run them without fail.

For the past 4 days every station has been spending the first 10 minutes of each newscast, using multiple live reporters, fancy graphics, to inform us it is cold in February. They’ve been running endless feature stories on the plight of the homeless, unheated apartments, tips on protecting the elderly and small children. The phrase “wear layered clothing” ran like a mantra.

New York 1, our local all-news cable channel sent a reporter out for “expert advice” on how to dress. She went to a popular outdoor outfitter off Union Square. They cater to the extreme sports enthusiast. This is the kind of store one goes to for ice fishing, pack packing in the Yukon or an expedition to Antarctica. They have a section for bow hunting and archery, which are considered extreme sports in NYC, but they don’t sell guns because guns kill people.

The reporter managed to find THE EXPERT who looked like a 21-year-old sales clerk, which indeed she was. The expert gave a 45-second discourse on LAYERING. She was appropriately serious because this was a serious TV interview, and yet I couldn’t help noticing that her expression said, “Huh??..Your kidding right???… You really want me to tell your presumably adult audience how to put on winter clothing?”

The ABC Network on its “Good Morning America” program had its weatherman, Sam Champion, stand in shirtsleeves for ten minutes in minus 10 degrees wind-chill to test his heart rate and to see whether or not he slurred his speech. This was to “show the affects of hypothermia” and to show that ABC weathermen “care about you." It was supposed to teach America not to stand in subzero weather without a coat on. Either the guys over at GMA on Times Sq are drunk, or Sam lost a bet with the sound guy or cameraman over the Super Bowl and was forced to freeze on national television. Or maybe both.

Why is this? I asked one reporter, who also thinks this practice is insane, and he said that weather is highly sponsored. So it is. People often tune in just for the weather report. So sponsors run adjacent spots with a bill board that says,” this weather report is brought to you by your NY Tri-State Ford dealer,” or some such thing. But the weather was always sponsored, and it never was this idiotic. I can see the weather guy saying, “OK folks lets bundle up out there because it's going to be COLD," etc., but not running endless lead stories about putting on BVDs.

One radio reporter I spoke to agreed that this is moronic, and hates doing it, but says his boss expects stories like this. He said he wishes he could stay inside and recycle the sound cuts since they are always the same; MOS cuts (Man-On-the-Street sound bites) from the usual suspects – the newsstand guy, the construction worker, the commuter waiting for the train – but his boss wants “fresh” sound, even though his boss knows that this is stupid.

One of the unfortunate outcomes is that these kinds of stories contribute to the endless and mindless culture of fear that seems to be pervading this country. Imagine our grandparents requiring some reporter to tell them to put on warm clothing in the dead of a New York winter. And when it is not cold, as it was last month, they run doomsday stories about “global warming," and how "our government needs to do something" to stop this threat to humanity.

I wish I could say that there is some kind of organised conspiracy to dumb down the news but there isn’t. The fact is that big market media are no longer run by the Bill Paleys or David Sarnoffs. They are run by committees of corporate hacks who get their companies to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to “consultants” who employ “focus groups” to test what the audience wants. This way they can blame someone outside the company when ratings go down. One of the new faddish beliefs that these oracles preach is that a morning audience doesn't like to think too hard. Also, the focus groups have determined that audiences don't like hearing about the Iraq war, especially the fact that we are losing. They want broadcast personalities to pretend as if they are some kind of friendly neighbour visiting your breakfast table in a kind of TV kaffeklatsch. And so we have sunny-faced talking head mommies giving useful tips to the adult children watching TV……”Bundle up your woolies. Don’t forget your hat. Be sure to put on your rubbers. Do you have your mittens?."…..etc., but less and less hard news.

This all contributes to the info-tainment of the news. By ignoring the visible world, broadcasters have to fill time with puerile pap. And so they spend endless time covering celebrities, i.e. people made famous because the media cover them.

Once, we worshipped God. Then we worshipped God's self-appointed agents in the form of royalty and nobility. In the 17th and 18th centuries, we worshipped philosophers and enlightened intellectuals. Later, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, we worshipped great inventors and industrialists. Now we worship Paris Hilton. What progress!!

This week we have had: The Pentagon intelligence report criticizing the Bush Administration for lying about why we went to war with Iraq. The trial of Scooter Libby. The Bush Administration ratcheting up a catastrophic war with Iran. More violence in Israel. More dead Iraqis due to a beefed up air war. More dead soldiers – including those who were killed in a friendly fire incident from a helicopter. But these stories only get brief mention.

And so we get endless weather stories. Of course, now that the weather has abated somewhat, the producers need to go on to the next "big story"…..an endless obituary of Anna Nicole Smith, including a special on ABC's 20/20. And broadcast executives wonder why so many intelligent people turn to the Internet.

February 10, 2007