I have seriously started to wonder what happened to the media over the years. Not a specific news outlet or anything but everything in general, be it papers, magazines, TV, radio or the internet. While this site focuses on celebrities it’s not just in that area of media reporting though, it’s a general thing.
The media reporting on celebrities has always been horrible but it’s just getting worse over time. Things that in itself aren’t really a scandal are blown way out of proportion and everyone feels they have to say something about it. Even if it’s something that is none of their business. People are branded as bad people before they even get the chance for people to really get to know them. That’s just how it’s seen these days though, all celebrities are the same and especially the younger ones. They are bound to grow up to be train wrecks and the media will do anything to make sure that that happens.
I’m not even going to name examples here because anyone can come up with quite a few examples by themselves. What it usually comes down to is that they do things that are bad, things they shouldn’t have done, however some self reflection can’t hurt and you have to wonder what things would be blown out of proportion if people would be a celebrity themselves. Yes, everyone makes mistakes, I make mistakes, you make mistakes, a celebrity makes mistakes. Thing is that us nobodies get away with it because no one cares and no one is planning on selling a picture, video or story just to make us look bad. When that happens to a celebrity the bad influence crap is also usually pulled in. Strange that being human amounts to being a bad influence.
That’s however what the bulk of the media wants, they want the bad influences to be there, they want celebrities to look bad. Though I think the main problem isn’t just there, it’s a general problem: Headline journalism. The story itself doesn’t matter, as long as it’s a headline that sells it’s fair game. Most of these examples can be found in celebrity journalism however there is plenty going around in mainstream news as well.
One horrid example I remember is a news website reporting that after the earthquake in Haiti a journalist performed brain surgery on a little girl. That makes for quite a headline then you read on, turns out that someone who works for CNN also happens to be a neurosurgeon and performed said surgery at request of a U.S. Navy surgeon on an aircraft carrier. He knew that said CNN reporter was in the area. Sorry but that is just molding the facts into a story that sells best. Sure great that he saved the little girl’s life and he should be credited with that, however it should not be reported like that.
The people who write stuff like that really have a problem, I don’t think they should be journalists. Now I’m in no way a professional or ever followed any course in journalism but I do know what moral standards are. With a lot of the media that has gone right out the window; just yesterday was a moment where I pretty much lost all faith in the media (as if the faith was high). That a single boy survived a plane crash in Libya has been all over the news so people know about that. How a Dutch newspaper got it in their brains to even try to talk to the boy is beyond me, though the doctor who handed the phone to the boy is just as much to blame. It was an unexpected opportunity is what the editor of the paper said. Well even if it wasn’t planned, you should never print it! The boy has gone enough, he can do without some assholes in a newspaper office profiting from his pain. I did not read the interview, I don’t even want to know what he said.
With all of that there is another guilty party though, not just the media. It’s the public, the audience that reads the sites, magazines, papers and watches the TV shows. People still eat it up, I don’t know how many times I’ve talked to people who fail to look through the misleading nature of an article. Of course they can’t know all the facts at certain times but the fact is that people still believe it. The selective nature of reporting things in the media plays right into the hands of their audience, people don’t want to see lengthy articles with all the facts. They want headline journalism, they want to be able to read a paper or news site within five minutes. They don’t want to deal with all the details.
The bad thing also Is that these days I often laugh about things like that. While I should be mad about it I just can’t be anymore, it’s gone too far already. When I see how badly written articles are it’s just shameful. I could do a better job than they could, I can say that with confidence actually. However no one would hire me because I don’t have any official training in it. Wonder how those people ever managed to pass their exams. While wikipedia should never be used as an official source for something like a news article some outlets should consider it, seeing some of the information on there is more accurate than what they are writing.
At the end I’m now shortly returning to the general theme of this website, the young stars in Hollywood. I am convinced that this kind of reporting is actually hurting people in that category. When someone is still young and still trying to find themselves as the person who they are, it can’t be good that some people who never met them go out of their way and try and make them out to be someone they aren’t. While a young star can do a thousand good things, it’s the one bad thing that will stand out. Sure, some of them have an image that is to blame on themselves to a certain extent, with the bulk of young stars however it’s the media by itself that does its best to paint a certain picture. In a lot of cases they are just bad knock offs of the actual person.
Human feelings should be taken into account, celebrities or any other person in the media are just that; people! They aren’t objects that are just there so a website or paper gets readers. Be it the feelings of a celebrity, a boy who just went to the biggest trauma anyone could imagine, or even a random person on the street. Everyone is human and should be treated with the same amount of respect. Everyone deserves for the entire story to be told and not just the part that matters for the headline.
