Media coverage is just giving people what they want anyway.

BULL!

I am so sick of hearing this erroneous assumption.

Mainstream media is not "giving the people what they want." They are manufacturing desire by delivering what they want to give. Vicious cycle.

If media did a fair and reasonable job of journalism, I really do not think ratings would necessarily plummet. Our national discourse would simply be about the items and issues they cover instead. If they did not deliberately titillate the population with stories of murder, sex and celebrity stalking I doubt as many people would care what OJ, Anna Nicole or Paris did. If they exposed the corruptibility of the election system, aired process stories and showed the affect of an illegal invasion on the civilian population of Iraq people would care about the decisions our government makes on our behalf.

The explosion of internet discourse on such topics pretty much proves the point.

You cannot tell me that human brains have evolved much in the last 150 years. It's a matter of social conditioning, not biology. Therefore we have a problem that can be solved. Now, how do we go about it? All of my ideas require I win a few hundred million in the lottery.

This is so not good when money equals power and grants those who possess it the ability to control the hearts and minds of those who do not. The people don't want the crap they're being given. They're being dominated by it.

How would you know that it's desirable?

I think the human brain automatically searches to understand. I remember when the news started leaving out the "news" part. They stopped naming names and I began to wonder "Who"?

And the more I listened the more I found myself wondering "What, When Where and Why?"

And let's face it, that's what all this is.. speculation this, speculation that.. sensationalism. But we have E t.v. and Entertainment tonight, and MTV, VH1, etc. I am fairly certain that news organizations should be reporting tangible news and leave the limelight of gossip to the gossip channels that we already have.

This is what I submitted.

______________________________

It is time to retire the false claim our media is merely giving the people what they want to see and hear. This simply is not true.

OJ, Anna Nicole and Paris are discussed around the water cooler because we are bombarded with their lurid stories for weeks on end. The impression left that nothing of much importance is happening in our country is insulting and irresponsible.

When editorial boards and production companies choose to cover issues that truly matter—for example, the vulnerability of our election system, corporate personhood, how our leaders and representatives make their decisions, the positive and negative impacts of their decisions—the national discourse will become more substantial.

The American people are not demanding to be titillated with stories of murder, sex and celebrity stalking. Such a desire is imagined, or manufactured, by those publishing and airing the content they deem important.

Let us leave gossip to the backyard fence and encourage our journalists pursue the career for which they have trained, shall we? Tell us what we need to know, not what you think we want to know.

They can have tabloid shows galore for what dummies WANT.

I want to see the evening news stripped of the ridiculous public service nomenclature, make the stations scramble for stuff that really is in the public interest instead of those lying, useless nightly network feeds.

Evening news shows were NEVER meant to be all about ratings. Some things must exist outside the for profit market, and public information service is one thing that has been a spectacular failure within it.

It's time to rewrite the rules, folks.

Oh, and any network that breaks into programming for "latest breaking news!" on the mischief of some overpaid celebrity that has no bearing on anyone else's life outside his/her circle of friends should be FINED.

Especially your last two sentences. I'm pretty darned close to supporting media reform as much as election reform.

nicole smith or ay of the other trashy, none important, mean nothing to me stories. because that is exactly what i dont have any interest with and i refuse to feed the bullshit what americans want meme.

i use to be a three cable news channel watcher. 24/7. turned off fox in 2003 more for degradation of women than anything else. anytime they can degrade a woman they do. anytime they can make female a slut they do. then in oct 2004 could no longer take these mouths telling ME what i think. always,.... dem thinks... and then feed me a talking point. just shut up with opinion and put the facts out. i will interpret. i will decide. but nooooo

i dont watch the entertainment channels anymore and i was the valued customer.

The irony to all of this is that I get bombarded with this trash when I come here and see all the posts about it. I would have had no idea what Paris Hilton was up to if I didn't come to DU. :)