Truth in Numbers, Numbers Lost Truth

When did the news media fail us? Integrity has given way to ratings, and ratings have become truth. While this has been said millions of times, I just wanted to say it here (this being a media based venture, why not, right?) More and more I wonder where the truth went, or more specifically, when did we as a public stop caring?

I blame 24 hour news, but there is more that I miss.

I miss when there was this adventurer mentality to the evening news. People would go out and chase the story down. There was risk. People would get beaten, abused, shouted at, and sometimes killed. But the story would get out there. These were hard stories that impacted people's lives. Dan Rather once spent a night in a jail cell because he wanted to try heroin in a controlled manner to gain perspective on a story. Four or five journalists were shot dead whilst investigating Jonestown. Hell, we even have reporters getting killed in Iraq trying to get the story...whatever story they're chasing.

Thanks to ratings we never hear these hard stories. They're too depressing. We hear harsh things from people who've never left the studio, from pretty boys and girls sitting in chairs. These are the acoustic folk singers to the previous generations Led Zepplin. It's watered down and really, really weak. There's no experience there. They aren't the sages from an older time who've seen it all. They're just some dudes in suits.

The reason I love Mike Doughty is that when he sings about drugs, you can feel the pain and love in his voice. You know that he wants to shoot up, but he knows that he can never go back. That's what's missing from the news today. There is no love or passion or pain. That doesn't get viewers. We get manufactured outrage, but it just comes off as silly and uninteresting. These are the Anderson Coopers and the Nancy Graces and the Bill O'Reilly-s. They're terrible, inauthentic and trite. But people love them.

Someday the media will grow some balls. Or someday we'll start to care again. Either or. There is news out there, and people are telling their stories. It's just become a lot harder to find the ones that matter.



-ccmas
reporting from planet 2