The Answer is Blowin’ in the Wind
The question is, how many television news reporters are willing to humiliate themselves to cover a hurricane?
Let’s face it, they weren’t in any real danger, they just wanted to make it look to you like they were risking their lives to show you basically that it was windy and raining outside. I don’t know about you, but I was getting real close to my saturation point watching the waterlogged, flapping, rain-pelted cable news network reporters make sustained fools of themselves, and also of the television viewing audience, by trying to convince us that what they were doing was important ...broadcast journalism at its finest.
No, the difference between real journalism and what these television cable news reporters were doing was the difference between say a rodeo clown and a circus clown. The rodeo clown has a definite purpose ...to protect the cowboy riders from being crushed or kicked to death by an enraged 2,800 lb. Brahman bull, and to spare the crowd in the arena from witnessing such a horrible sight, while a circus clown’s job is to merely amuse and make you laugh.
There are real journalists out there, some of whom you will never know their names, really risking their lives, uncovering and defending truth.
I mean, okay already, I get it. It’s very windy. It’s raining cats and dogs. People are in danger. But you are making a circus of it, and them. And your sponsors love it. Well, we all love it really, most of us. But after a while, enough is enough.
I’m sure each one of these reporters was directed by a producer or news director to get out there and dance in the wind and rain, but after a while the credibility they profess and try so hard to foster and protect turns into an irrational visualization of the fabled “idiot with not enough sense to come in out of the rain.” They are seemingly sacrificing themselves to show us, I think, that they are brave and that it’s raining ..that they are doing it for us, and we shouldn’t be doing this ourselves, too dangerous ..so they will save us all by braving the storm so we don’t have to. Would we anyway?
That’s show business, baby.
Then to further build the self-inflicted drama of the danger of which they are really not in, the studio anchor person is always telling them, when going into another overextended commercial break, to “please stay safe out there.” I mean, LOL.
The best was a shot of a reporter, overacting being blown by the wind and pelted with rain, hanging on for dear life, one hand on microphone covered in plastic, the other holding her hood in place, knee deep in water, and a guy on a bike passing by in back of her like he’s riding in light spring rain. Another, was the reporter who tied himself to a pillar and then seemingly got tangled up with his tether and microphone cord, all the while people were walking by wondering what this guy was up to. His demonstration was well intended, I’m sure, but totally over the top and unnecessary.
After a reasonable while, I thought they’d tone down the field reporter hype. It was way too much. But television being television, how could they resist? We all love to hate watching a train wreck. Can’t get enough of it. Well, I, for one, could. All the usual suspect cable news channels, CNN, MSNBC and FOX had in-studio weather reporting complete with incredibly informative computer models, weather maps and time-lapsed radar screens and predictions. This is where the real hurricane news was, and also in the aftermath video of the damage incurred. The Weather Channel had the most informative reporting, and actually, the best field reporting. It seemed to me their reporters were willing to take one for the team more than the other channels‘ reporters, and they were all, seemingly, real meteorologists.
But maybe it just seemed that way to me. I was actually worried for them. But as for the others, I was secretly hoping to see an errant garbage can or tree limb take one out (with no serious injury). Is that bad of me? Sorry. But my heart would go out to them.
And how about Anderson Cooper’s sexy, tight black t-shirt. No covering that hurricane for him in an unflattering rain mackinaw. Anderson wins the wet t-shirt contest hands down! He’s rode that horse hard and put it away wet many times over the years. And we love it!
But seriously, what are we watching? Why? What are they showing us and why? When news becomes show business and show business, news, I think it’s time for a reboot. We seem to be more concerned with the show business. The news services package their news around the ever-extending, inane, commercial breaks to the point of loss of continuity and focused interest in the news. Or, maybe their intent is to build a tension to get you back to watching their news product.
I love our American way of life and our freedoms and our country. But I don’t suffer fools gladly, you shouldn’t either, and I think they, “they”, whoever they are, are playing us for fools. The American television viewing demographic is a powerful force which shouldn’t be pandered to. Our politicians keep telling us how smart we Americans are. Let’s fool them and start acting like it.
And who is responsible for this hypnotic, mesmerized phenomenon of television viewership? Well, it goes way back. It didn’t happen overnight. In the 50’s, my dad would come home from work and yell at us kids for sitting, seemingly hypnotized, in front of the TV. He’d say, “Turn that ‘idiot box‘ off!”
Idiot Box indeed.
John Kushma is a communication consultant and lives in Logan, Utah.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-george-kushma-379a5762
http://newsbout.com/a/John+Kushma
