Thanks to Doc Searls for pointing to this excellent blast Enough with the Michael Jackson Crap.
I don’t care if the audience eats this shit up. They’d eat up public hangings and cats being thrown out of skyscraper windows. We have to be above their basest desires … that’s why we pass up on the better-paying gigs at the National Enquirer. Well isn’t it?
News should be what affects the most people. Celebs have no impact on my life or the lives of anybody but their friends, families and co-workers. If Michael Jackson’s arrest hurts record sales it’s a business story. If it boosts TV ratings, it’s a TV page story. If he molests little boys, it’s a crime story. Whatever kind of story it is, it’s not Page One News:
I sometimes watch Fox News on Satellite in appalled fascination at its version of reality. I can’t believe the blanket coverage it is giving to this story. So much TV news has slumped to real lowest-common-denominator pap. BBC news has become increasingly trivial in presentation if not yet in content. My pet beef there is the ridiculous fixation with sticking reporters LIVE in the pouring rain at dead of night outside empty buildings like 10 Downing Street to make their content seem more important. Utterly insulting to audience intelligence.
This is the curse of BAD marketing, not challenging the customer but placating them. It’s the soma of Brave New World, delivered to people they treat like Epsilon Minus Semi Morons.
