A few weeks ago, a very curious thing happened on MSNBC. One morning early this month, MSNBC reporter Mika Brzezinski refused, on air, to cover Paris Hilton’s release from jail. Competing for airtime with the ridiculous heiress’ ongoing saga was the bill that proposed a timetable for withdrawal of troops from Iraq having been introduced on the House and Senate floor.
So incensed by the story and her producer’s (and teleprompter’s) refusal to budge on running Hilton as the lead story was Brzezinski, that she first attempted to set the script on fire, then tore and shredded the papers—all on live television.
Her explanation for the deed? “I just don’t believe in covering that story, especially not as the lead story in a newscast when you have a day like today.”
Brzezinski deserves a big round of applause, and she’s been getting it.
That the news is not the news, particularly on the national level, is, well, unfortunately, not news anymore. But it’s really good to see that someone finally said something, even if it’s because they snapped. It proves some folks in national media actually still care.
This story didn’t get a lot of mainstream coverage, and the explanation on the show “Morning Joe,” was fairly short—the incident was only brought back up after it was clear, from the thousands upon thousands of emails cheering Brzezinski’s act.
The incident also quickly made its way to YouTube, where it was popular and well-viewed, generating even more support for Brzezinski.
That the news on TV is not news, but “infotainment,” as I mentioned earlier, is nothing all that new. Television newscaster Edward Murrow prophetically warned of this problem more than 50 years ago, and we’ve been moving at an ever-increasing pace towards nearly no “hard” news. In fact, the problem is so bad I’m personally often reminded of scenes from Ray Bradbury’s “Farhenheit 451” when I watch network news.
Constantly, when the powers that be deign to answer the question “Why is there no more ‘serious’ news?” we get the answer, “Because that doesn’t sell. ‘Infotainment’ does. It is what the public wants.”
This is complete and utter bunk. If nothing else, the droves of emails and intelligently written commentaries on the incident one will find on the Web belie this idea. And, I can personally vouch, as I cover community news, my readers tell me they want more, not less, ‘hard’ news complete with all the details we can muster.
The fact is, while the public is sometimes guilty of working from the lowest common denominator, big money media is far more guilty of force feeding this excrement to the public. Many, if not most, people turn on television news, hoping to glean some nuggets of real information of what is going on in the world. They dodge the bullets of “non-news” such as the latest highway car crash and stories of questionable merit, such as the Paris Hilton soap opera, looking in vain for some real news of what is going on in Washington D.C., Iraq, Afghanistan, or even just the world and nation in general.
From what I hear regularly, they are usually disappointed.
Given that the owners of big media also have many other corporate interests (such as petroleum, international industry, and even just mundane things such as big box retail) who might be affected by news coverage either in the form of incoming advertising dollars, or by the possibility that a story might just tarnish the image of a owner’s other interest and negatively impact their overall bottom line, the corporate masters of big media really have no interest in informing the public. It is much more convenient, and perhaps monetarily profitable, to distract, shock and entertain the public with drivel than to tell the actual news of the day on what is supposedly news programming.
For myself, having “killed my television” some years ago (I do literally own two, but I don’t subscribe to a cable or satellite service.), most of my national and international news comes from radio or the Internet. And, I find, if I really want to know what’s going on, both here and abroad, tuning into news reported from other countries, such as the BBC, is a lot more efficient than trying to decipher what’s really happening from a couple of sound bites squished in between “non-news,” “infotainment,” and commercials.
A few friends have mentioned to me that they do the same thing—if they really want to know what’s going on, they turn to independent or overseas sources.
It struck me the other day how sad this situation is. Not so many years ago, the U.S. was a recognized source around the world for free information. During the Cold War, there were U.S. efforts to broadcast uncensored news to Communist block states and other totalitarian areas around the world. What happened? How did it come to be that we, in America, need to go to reporting sources overseas to get a more accurate picture, or any real picture, for that matter, of what is happening in our own country?
But Brzezinski’s act on air does give me some hope. When a national news reporter snaps on live television, possibly jeopardizing her career, because she’s being made to report a story that is not news once too often, we might be getting somewhere. It’s even more heartening that thousands, if not a few million, cheered by flooding the network with emails and posting commentary praising her on the Internet.
Let’s just hope that the network folks begin to listen. However, with comments during the incident from Brzezinski’s male colleagues such as, “Why are you such a journalist?” and calling her a “wench,” unfortunately, I have little hope that I will be enjoying—or trusting—what is being reported on national network news anytime soon.
To see Brzezinski’s refusal to lead the morning news with Paris Hilton’s release from jail yourself, visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VdNcCcweL0.
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