Extra! Extra! We interrupt this series of political posts about religion to bring you a political post about the media. I know I promised some religious thoughts on Cordoba House, but I must digress because I was struck by how the media blew up this whole Koran-burning thing into a full-blown circus last week. I mean why on earth does anyone know the name Terry Jones right now? Well, the short answer is that it is the media’s fault. The long answer is that it is your fault.
Before I start this little diatribe I would like to assure you all that I am a huge fan of having a free press. Huge fan. Hooray for a free press! That being said, there are those little quirks she has that are hard to ignore. The biggest one stems from the fact that the news media has to make her way in the world by holding our attention. To do so she has to put on make-up and make herself attractive, so to speak. I think women (my wife in particular) are beautiful and I think the free press is beautiful, but I have to admit that when they dress themselves up I take a bit more notice.
To some degree that’s okay - presenting yourself well is important. I mean, who wants to watch the news if the camera is out of focus or the news anchor is incoherent? And who would want to hang out with my wife if she let snot drip down her face and ate party streamers like our baby girl? But the trouble is that often when we start to focus on appearances, we unleash a flood of competitive cosmetology. I’m not saying we should throw all our eyeliner and lipstick in the garbage, but we should be wary of the fact that our society is forcing women (and men to some degree) to buy cosmetics not as simple adornment, but as war paint in a brutal competition for sexual partners, job opportunities, and attention. (The global cosmetics industry now generates $170 billion dollars per year, enough to give every person on the planet $20 each Christmas.) No matter how much my wife or the media dress themselves up, their real beauty and true value is something that make-up can sometimes obscure rather than enhance.
But what does this have to do with Terry Jones?
Everything. Let’s start where his fame started: on the local news. At its best, the local news investigates and reports on issues that affect us at a not-so-national level. It gives us useful information about trends, changes, and corruption that are provincial and might not otherwise be brought to light. But at its worst, local news is a cloying prostitute who tries to lure you in with attractive stories like car wrecks, shootings, and fires, and other sensationalism that minimally affects our lives except that it gives us something to talk about in awkward social settings. Incidentally, it seems like lots of things that pop up in awkward conversations (you know, weather and sports) figure prominently on the local news.
But national news seems to have the same problem, especially on radio and TV. The topics may be more cosmopolitan and the stories more consequential, but it is really hard to find much variety. Instead, we hear over and over again about the oil spill, Cordoba House, Afghanistan, and Terry Jones. It just gets so boring so fast. But we must be asking for it because media outlets don’t make money unless those snakecharmers get us to take a second glance. Even public radio is a victim of this. They too must fight to expand their viewership if they want to prove their relevance and earn more donations.
In this case of Terry Jones the media isn’t covering the story, they are making the story. Like north shore surfers they battle for position to ride the next sensational story. The way it must have happened for Terry Jones was like this: some producer on a major network, perhaps during a lull in real news, decided to air a story on some guy who doesn’t like a particular book. It turns out that some people on the other side of the world really like this book and were so pissed off about it that they started rioting. Suddenly an event that was supposed to attract the attention of 40 people in a small town congregation has attracted the attention of the whole world. Soon every newsroom executive realized that if they didn’t publish a story on Terry Jones people would click over to the other news station or that loyal Tribune readers would pick up a copy of the Times and maybe make the switch because they have to have all the “important” topics fresh in their mind when they hit the breakroom. No one wants to make awkward situations even more awkward because their newspaper hasn’t told them about the Terry Jones incident. So news outlets, like 13-year old cd collectors, can afford to omit the important, but they can never afford to omit the popular.
The problem is that we have lots of offensive people in our country. Terry Jones probably isn’t even in the top 10%. Are we really supposed to collectively denounce all of the potentially offensive things that people in our country do so that people in other countries don’t hate us for it? If the mainstream media could dare to leave back page stories on the back page, then we wouldn’t have to worry about the rest of the world getting the wrong impression. Proof of the media’s error came about midway through the Terry Jones circus. He said he would consider halting his planned Koran burning if the president called to chat with him. In a sense he tried to call the media’s bluff. I’m pretty sure he is still waiting by the phone. The media said he was important. The President said, no, he’s not. Obama can’t call this guy because thousands of other yahoos will pull stunts like this just to get B.O. on the phone (they should just wipe it under their arms).
So it’s the media’s fault, right? Nope. It’s ours. We vote with our remote controls and our mouse clicks and we are obviously voting for vapid stories usually tied to one or another culture war: things that are really easy to get our minds around and form an opinion on. The news media is not just making itself pretty for us, but it is doing whatever it takes to hold our attention, which means that the news media often must take entertaining more seriously than investigating and give us all the latest grown-up gossip rather than giving us useful information.
Perhaps I have been a bit too harsh. Despite all its faults, the news media can and often does take a higher road even when we don’t follow them with our mouses and remotes. Rather than dressing up their gossip to make it look newsworthy, they can redefine beauty with a dose of moxie, poise, compassion, self-examination, humanity, and humility: the same things that make my wife so beautiful. Rather than finding ways to get me to consume their product, they can find ways to make me a better person.
So next time you are in the breakroom ask your coworker if they think Lee Kuan Yew has created something in Singapore that could inform American democracy. You are bound to get an entirely blank stare. (I don’t even know how to pronounce his name.) We are all woefully under-informed about topics like that, but perhaps you and your coworker could pledge to find out what you think about it and meet regularly to think it through together. While you are finding out, your mouse clicks and magazine purchases will imperceptibly, but gradually, move the news media toward the higher road.
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