Monday, November 21, 2011

The Original Media Clowns


I've always wondered why some scandalous politicians and celebrities of today are easy fodder for the media, specifically entertainment, to cover. If you're wondering who I might be referring to, it's easy to point out numerous cheating politicians like Larry Craig, Elliot Spitzer, Anthony Weiner and colorful celebrities like Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian and Lindsay Lohan. I would characterize these omnipresent personalities as today's media clowns. By my definition, media clowns, represent eccentric characters that emerge into the news through the odd or deplorable things they do. Once established in the media, the quickly learn how to play up to the camera, essentially using their own air time to benefit financially and always push their own agendas. In other words, these are deprived, desperate and attention-seeking people. It is not enough that Lady Gaga out shines everyone at one of the million televised award shows by dressing up like Madonna, so she shows up in a suit of literal raw meat the next time around. Likewise, it is also not enough that Anthony Weiner, husband of one of Obama's cabinet members, to be accused by some woman of sending her pictures of his wiener. No, he has to go on a media crusade to save his name while more naked pictures of him emerge.

With all this in mind, I present to you what I think helped pave the way for attention-grubbing celebrities or the inexplicable willingness for media outlets to frequently gravitate around these people: the Yippies. The Yippies (Youth International Party) were a counter-culture group of people that first emerged during the Vietnam War and the Anti-War Protest Movement of the 1960s. If you're wondering, the Yippes adapted their name from the Hippies and was the inspiration for the naming of the Yuppies in the 1980s. Unlike, the Occupy_______ protesters of today, the Yippies had two leaders that would become a media joke: Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. Their sole mission as an organization was to make a mockery of the media, protest the status quo and materialism of the country and symbolically elect a pig for president in 1968. Abbie, Jerry and the rest of the Yippies' pranks and jokes begin innocently enough like when they managed to get a tour of the New York Stock Exchange building where they threw hundreds of fake and real bills off the balcony above the stock room. They watched with glee as the traders down below scrambled to scoop up as much money as they could. They also both participated in a group effort at the Pentagon where they tried to levitate the building. For these acts, they were subpoenaed by the House of Un-American Activities Committee and showed up to court wearing Santa Claus, Viet Cong or Uncle Sam costumes. But, their coup de grace came when their effort to stage protest at the 1968 Democratic National Convention was thwarted by the city of Chicago and the police, leading, in part, to the rioting that overshadowed the entire DNC event that year. An entire cross-section of the New Left including Hoffman and Rubin were tried with conspiracy to riot.

The conspiracy charges would be later dropped and both men would soon fade out of the media's attention as protesting the war was becoming more and more irrelevant. As cyclical has the four seasons, the media's job is finding the next attention-seeking clown who is too moon struck with promises of fame and wealth, albeit brief, to realize the fact they they're being shamelessly exploited on a national scale. Octomom, anyone? Who will be the media's next big victim? Just give it a few weeks!

Saturday, November 19, 2011

News Distortion At Its Best...or Worst



Came across a tease for a news article of a fatal bus crash tragedy on a major news source. The tease screams at you with a picture of a school bus torn and gnarled and tipping over a ravine. The headline mentions some important aspects of a news story like a possibly reason to why the bus crashed, being "overpacked," and who was involved "18 kindergartners killed." The stimuli/picture/captions tug at our heart strings and we as readers, parents and human beings instantly put ourselves in sympathy mode as we think how awful it must be for the parents, family and school for these children. We also think how could this happen to such innocent children and where? Is my child effected? Is this near some distant relatives of mine?

Literally, the way the headline reads and the information they give makes us want to click and read to find out where this horrible bus crash occurred, because you are sure it's local. Well, all of these emotions went through me and I had to find out where in the United States this happened. I click and find out the bus crash was in China.



The entire second picture shocks me. Not only is the bus crash out of China and not the United States but, the school bus itself is different. The top picture is the traditional American school bus and the bottom is a yellow van, not necessarily known as a "school bus" to Americans. The top picture gives us every indication that it is an American school bus crash and therefore an important story for all Americans to read about because it may involve our children's safety. The bus picture change and the patent omission of where the bus crash occurred is "localizing" a news story for an American reader where our initial emotions or responses are raw. We expect to read a story that is going to sadden us about the tragedy, but also provide a critical commentary on the dangers of having a over-crowded American bus, a vehicle that historically has never had any seat belts. Now, the emotion to the fact that 18 innocent children's lives were taken shouldn't change, but we still breathe a collective sign of relief that it doesn't effect us or our children in America. But, alas, major news sources like AOL, Yahoo and MSN benefit off of our emotions not only in the wording or pictures used in their stories that distort the real facts, but also make money (pennies) on the frequentcy that readers click the "read more" option.

I don't think it's right that news corporations make money off of our emotions or responses to headlines, but that's been happening since broadcast news began. The same tactics are now used with internet news sources that depend on subscribers, reader traffic and article clicks for their revenue. Watch for these kind of new articles where the wording is a little bit off or some huge part of the puzzle is missing like "where." Didn't we learn about the "who,what,when,where,why and how" paradigm in grade school?