Tuesday, March 14, 2006
First parody, then recognition, then...?
Alright, if you live in Madison, you surely remember the name Audrey Seiler. The UW student who kidnapped herself and drew national attention to the swampy fields south of Madison. Broom Street Theater ran a parody of her called "Audrey Seiler, Where Are You?"
Of course, if you ever tune in to any cable news station, you know that Audrey is far from the only pretty, young, white woman who has attracted a media blitz. Seems like every few weeks, there's another one. Hell, Nancy Grace has made an entire career out of it. It was enough to elicit a terrific parody, originally posted at thepoorman.net. The parody was widely redistrubted, and you can read a transcript at On the Media's website. Here's a snippet:
"In a surprise move expected to send shock waves through the world of TV journalism, CNN, the original cable news network, and NBC, which owns cable channels MSNBC and CNBC, announced a deal to consolidate their news divisions into a single giant network. The new network, to be called Where the White Women At or WWWA, is set to debut this week.
"The new network will include WWWA Headline News which will deliver key missing white women developments every half hour. Most of the network's time will be devoted to covering current missing white women, but there will also be talk shows where groups of white men get together to discuss the significance of past missing white women, imperiled white women and white women in persistent vegetative states."
Of course, first comes parody, then the insiders start to recognize the problem. Today, CNN's Anderson Cooper noted the trend on his blog.
"I've never, not even once, seen a story spiked because the victim was not attractive enough or the wrong race. But I've seen plenty of stories fall by the wayside, pushed down and out of the show, because a consensus develops that says, 'You know, I don't think our viewers are very interested in this case.'
"Is that racism or realism? We can't cover every murder, but ignoring them all or reporting just statistics seems irresponsible. So how should we decide whose life or loss is covered?"
So first of all, racism and realism are not mutually exclusive. "Just being realistic" has been used as an excuse for racism many times in the past. No exception now.
Second, I think it's wrong - and perhaps a form of passive racism - for newsroom producers to put responsibility for this sort of coverage on their viewers, saying that viewers aren't interested in a particular case. All of us who have made decisions in a newsroom have to trust our own news sense and intuition as to what makes a good story, but we must always be critical and self-reflexive to avoid the pitfalls of just the type of journalism that Anderson refers to.
Third, and most important, why the hell do we need so much ridiculous, sensational coverage of crime in the first place? People do bad things. Some particularly bad people sometimes kill other people. It's awful. And it has been going on for millenia. I fail to see how it's news each time, much less the national media blitz that seems to always accompany these stories.
Just imagine, if we didn't have so much sensationalist coverage of kidnappings and murders of people (mostly white women), how many in-depth, investigative, critical stories could be aired instead? If we set journalists to actually doing meaningful journalism, imagine how much more vibrant a democracy we could have... how much more aware Americans would be of the scoundrels in office, how much more aware about people and places around the world... would we have ended up with the neo-fascist regime we're living with now...
Anderson writes off mainstream newsroom decisions as a "consensus that develops," but that is utter bullshit. Sensational pap sells ads, and newsroom decision-makers are so attuned to this system that they internalize it as a "consensus." Real people - with names, families, lives, and histories - are the ones making the decisions. We cannot allow the responsibility for those decisions to be collectivized such that no one is responsible. News producers that consistently decide to run such "journalism" are all responsible. And they are all in part responsible for the waning democracy in the United States today.
WORT may not air every story that's out there. In fact, I'm sure we miss some pretty important stories from time to time. But there are threads that consistently run through all of our newsroom decisions.
We try to air stories and programs that can actually affect our listeners. Budgets, legislation, activism, community organizing, policy, labor negotiations, war & peace, environment, race, poverty, homophobia, access to health care, freedoms and rights, development, corruption.
Many of our interviews end with the question, "What can people do to find out more?" That's because we try to air stories and programs that our listeners can get involved with. Events, conferences, activist groups.
We air stories in greater depth than almost any other broadcast medium. In Our Backyard, with some of the shortest stories on our airwaves, averages 3-5 minutes per story. That allows us to provide more detail, more discussion, more analysis, and more understanding.
We air stories with critical angles, angles that aren't covered in typically "straight" broadcast news accounts. Angles that are informed by critical theory and critical thinking. Angles that have a vision for a better society and world.
That's what WORT does. And we hope to help make our corner of the world more democratic because of it.
Of course, if you ever tune in to any cable news station, you know that Audrey is far from the only pretty, young, white woman who has attracted a media blitz. Seems like every few weeks, there's another one. Hell, Nancy Grace has made an entire career out of it. It was enough to elicit a terrific parody, originally posted at thepoorman.net. The parody was widely redistrubted, and you can read a transcript at On the Media's website. Here's a snippet:
"In a surprise move expected to send shock waves through the world of TV journalism, CNN, the original cable news network, and NBC, which owns cable channels MSNBC and CNBC, announced a deal to consolidate their news divisions into a single giant network. The new network, to be called Where the White Women At or WWWA, is set to debut this week.
"The new network will include WWWA Headline News which will deliver key missing white women developments every half hour. Most of the network's time will be devoted to covering current missing white women, but there will also be talk shows where groups of white men get together to discuss the significance of past missing white women, imperiled white women and white women in persistent vegetative states."
Of course, first comes parody, then the insiders start to recognize the problem. Today, CNN's Anderson Cooper noted the trend on his blog.
"I've never, not even once, seen a story spiked because the victim was not attractive enough or the wrong race. But I've seen plenty of stories fall by the wayside, pushed down and out of the show, because a consensus develops that says, 'You know, I don't think our viewers are very interested in this case.'
"Is that racism or realism? We can't cover every murder, but ignoring them all or reporting just statistics seems irresponsible. So how should we decide whose life or loss is covered?"
So first of all, racism and realism are not mutually exclusive. "Just being realistic" has been used as an excuse for racism many times in the past. No exception now.
Second, I think it's wrong - and perhaps a form of passive racism - for newsroom producers to put responsibility for this sort of coverage on their viewers, saying that viewers aren't interested in a particular case. All of us who have made decisions in a newsroom have to trust our own news sense and intuition as to what makes a good story, but we must always be critical and self-reflexive to avoid the pitfalls of just the type of journalism that Anderson refers to.
Third, and most important, why the hell do we need so much ridiculous, sensational coverage of crime in the first place? People do bad things. Some particularly bad people sometimes kill other people. It's awful. And it has been going on for millenia. I fail to see how it's news each time, much less the national media blitz that seems to always accompany these stories.
Just imagine, if we didn't have so much sensationalist coverage of kidnappings and murders of people (mostly white women), how many in-depth, investigative, critical stories could be aired instead? If we set journalists to actually doing meaningful journalism, imagine how much more vibrant a democracy we could have... how much more aware Americans would be of the scoundrels in office, how much more aware about people and places around the world... would we have ended up with the neo-fascist regime we're living with now...
Anderson writes off mainstream newsroom decisions as a "consensus that develops," but that is utter bullshit. Sensational pap sells ads, and newsroom decision-makers are so attuned to this system that they internalize it as a "consensus." Real people - with names, families, lives, and histories - are the ones making the decisions. We cannot allow the responsibility for those decisions to be collectivized such that no one is responsible. News producers that consistently decide to run such "journalism" are all responsible. And they are all in part responsible for the waning democracy in the United States today.
WORT may not air every story that's out there. In fact, I'm sure we miss some pretty important stories from time to time. But there are threads that consistently run through all of our newsroom decisions.
We try to air stories and programs that can actually affect our listeners. Budgets, legislation, activism, community organizing, policy, labor negotiations, war & peace, environment, race, poverty, homophobia, access to health care, freedoms and rights, development, corruption.
Many of our interviews end with the question, "What can people do to find out more?" That's because we try to air stories and programs that our listeners can get involved with. Events, conferences, activist groups.
We air stories in greater depth than almost any other broadcast medium. In Our Backyard, with some of the shortest stories on our airwaves, averages 3-5 minutes per story. That allows us to provide more detail, more discussion, more analysis, and more understanding.
We air stories with critical angles, angles that aren't covered in typically "straight" broadcast news accounts. Angles that are informed by critical theory and critical thinking. Angles that have a vision for a better society and world.
That's what WORT does. And we hope to help make our corner of the world more democratic because of it.
