The Media Circus

Writing for newspapers has been a big part of my life. In junior high I began to cover sports for the weekly Lititz Record Express. In high school my work expanded and I wrote two weekly columns in addition to covering all athletic contests. During the summers I covered all the area news and one summer I actually served as editor, responsible each week for the entire publication. While in college I wrote for the Lancaster and York Sunday News during summers and later I spent a summer working for the Sunbury Daily Item. While teaching I also covered Saturday football games for the Sunday News for about 25 years. So the newspaper media has been a big part of my life for over 35 years. I had good bosses who taught me and held me to strict standards of accuracy and fair reporting. However, times have changed. Print newspapers are no longer the main source of information. Now it is television, the internet, electronic newspapers and magazines, television news, shows twitter, Facebook, etc. But while news is now readily available at our finger tips, I think the quality, accuracy, and integrity of the media and information has deteriorated. If you have followed the media circus of coverage of the "scandal" at Penn State, this becomes obvious. Not only has false information been shared as fact, but rumors have been spread and everything has been stretched and sensationalized. The media has tried and convicted folks without a jury trial. They have abandoned the American principal of innocent until proven guilty. They have been judge and jury and, right or wrong, they have ruined reputations. Videos of the "riot" have been played over and over again. One reporter who claimed to be hit by thrown rocks was actually hit on the pant leg by a pebble. TV had cameras posted at Joe's home, night and day, and before, during and following the football game. They kept showing that during the game nobody came or left his house, except for the mailman. I was surprised that they didn't interview him to see what mail he had delivered to Joe that day. When the interim president appeared at his first news conference, just hours after being appointed, one of the "intelligent" reporters asked him if he planned to move into the president's house. He handled that stupid question well saying that in light of all that happened in the last few hours, that was at the far bottom of his list of concerns. Then there was the insensitive question asked on TV of Joe's grieving son moments after the game. "What was it like to coach without your dad?" Jay handled this well but understandably it brought tears to his eyes. But that insensitivity was considered good journalism. Now this media circus has made me wonder what the requirements are to make it in today's media. Here is what I think. First, you must definitely be a liberal. There is no room for a conservative viewpoint, except maybe on Fox. Second, you must be insensitive to the feelings of others. You can't care about their pain or suffering. Third, you must be a master in innuendo, hinting that more revelations are still coming. Fourth, you must be good at digging for the negative and overlooking the positive. Fifth, you must be able to sensationalize (is that even a word?) even the most minor event. And sixth, you must be able to ask dumb questions - really dumb ones - with a smile. Maybe you can add some more qualifications of your own. Now while the reporting of recent events at PSU has made this more evident to me, there are many other examples of stupid reporting. For example, every winter when we have a snow, from heavy flurries to a foot, a local TV station sends reporters to five or six area counties. They stand with the traffic shown behind them and when they give their report, without fail, each one proudly reports how many trucks Penndot has ready to roll. Now who really cares how many trucks are loaded with salt in Dauphin County or that there are 23 trucks ready to roll in York County? But that seems to be the big news of their report. If nothing else, it is predictable and provides a good laugh. But it is stupid. Now while we can smile about some of the things that the media does, it is somewhat scary how the media can control what information is shared. That in turn controls what people hear and think. And, as a result, public opinion is molded by the media. And that is dangerous and a threat to our democracy.