Category: State of the Fourth Estate



Not Such an Odd Couple: Michael Jackson and Thomas Jefferson
By George Merlis

The death of Michael Jackson made me think of this guy, Thomas Jefferson.


Jefferson

Well, no it wasn't Jackson’s actual death so much as the media over-reaction to it that got me thinking about Jefferson. Specifically, I was reminded of an 1816 letter Jefferson wrote in which he observed: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was and never will be.” When Jackson died, we were once again treated to the spectacle of our broadcast media over-exerting themselves to enhance mass ignorance.


Jackson's early and later incarnations

Jackson’s death at age 50 does not spell the end of civilization as we know it. But I think it’s only a slight exaggeration to say that the coverage of that tragic event raises the specter that our American democracy is in danger of following the singer to the crypt.

Totally abdicating its responsibility to keep citizens informed of matters that actually impact their lives -- like health care reform -- or issues that relate to our national security -- like North Korea’s saber-rattling and the first signs of Iranian theocratic fascism being challenged from within -- the broadcast media launched into All Michael, All the Time mode.

On the last day of June in Los Angeles, KNBC, the GE-owned and operated TV station, had no fewer than three correspondents reporting “live” from the field about Jackson during its late night newscast, despite the fact that there was no news -- the coroner having not yet released toxicity tests, funeral arrangements having not yet been announced and the pop star having failed to rise from the dead. That same day, big things happened in the state capital: California, home of the world’s seventh largest economy, ran out of money and out of options and announced it would pay its bills with IOUs. In fairness, KNBC did get to the budget problem in its 11 p.m. newscast -- interrupting the continuous stream of Jackson non-news about half way into the program and reporting the dire economic story in about half the time it devoted to the region’s unchanging weather. The state budget story will directly affect most of the state’s residents and indirectly affect all of them and their elected representatives might be prevailed upon to do something about it. But it’s unlikely any prevailing will be done by an electorate desensitized to its own interests by blanket coverage of the Jackson saga.

I pick on KNBC because I watch KNBC. From sampling I know they are no better nor worse than the others in the broadcast pack. (Although I am informed by speakers of the tongue that the Spanish-language stations in town actually cover government, the schools and economic news.)

But what should I have expected from KNBC, a television station which, just a few months ago, devoted its entire 11:00 p.m. newscast to live helicopter video coverage of a low-speed police pursuit of a Bentley as it wound its way around the area freeways? Since the Bentley is one of a handful of favored vehicles of music industry biggies, KNBC was likely anticipating that at the end of the chase a bling-laden rapper would be pulled from the driver’s seat. In fact, several times during the chase the anchors intoned lines like, “We don’t know if the driver is a celebrity, but....”


End of the Bentley Chase

You can imagine the expletives erupting in the control room when police revealed that the driver -- who committed suicide in the Bentley after police cut it off on a North Hollywood street -- was just an ordinary depressed rich guy without a single show business credit to his name. He wasn’t even a Californian! (Maybe the car’s Illinois license plate should have tipped off KNBC to report some other news from time to time during the broadcast.)

But, really, even if the driver had been, say, Michael Jackson, would it have been worth an entire newscast? Should everything that happens during a day -- including events that materially touch viewers lives -- be sacrificed on the alter of celebrity coverage? And when I say sacrifice, I mean real sacrifice -- both journalistic and financial. KNBC deemed the Bentley chase so important it preempted its commercials to follow it, lest viewers be watching sales pitches for Big Macs and Toyotas when the pursuit ended.

On the other hand, broadcasting made money with its wall-to-wall Jackson coverage. Since nothing at all was happening for much of the time, there were plenty of opportunities to run commercials. And for this viewer, they were a welcome relief from reporters-who-should-be-ashamed-of-themselves interviewing tearful fans-who-should-to-get-lives.

Now before I go too far in condemning what the media have become, I have to confess my own role in helping it start down the road to irresponsibility. In the past I have been executive producer of “Good Morning America,” “The CBS Morning News,” (lately renamed -- more accurately -- “The Morning Show”) and “Entertainment Tonight.” But in my defense, I must say that the 1983 “Entertainment Tonight” I ran looks like the “Wall Street Journal” or “The New York Times” when compared to the current iterations of “Today,” “Good Morning America,” and most major market broadcast TV newscasts. And by contemporary standards, the GMA I knew was an intellectual’s haven. (We even interviewed authors who weren't movie, music and TV stars!)

In an earlier post I wrote about the failure of the news media -- pressed by tough economic times -- to do adequate fact-checking. An even more fundamental problem is when the media fails to do journalism-checking. Michael Jackson’s untimely death is a news story, alright. It’s just not THE news story. There seem to me to be four areas of Michael Jackson’s life and death that are legitimate fodder for journalists: his creative contribution, the bizarre personality he became and the causes of that strange turn, the financial and family aftermath of his death, and the possible cautionary tale of the cause of death (which as of this writing we don’t know despite endless drug speculation on broadcasts major and minor). These stories could be told intelligently and with a sense of proportion -- the first of them having the most impact on the most people. But to devote precious reportorial resources and scarce time to endless drivel about Jackson is a disservice to the public.

Jon Stewart put it all in perspective on his fake news program “The Daily Show,” going so far as to coin a new word: “obitutainment” and creating an award show for “obitutainment” achievements, the “Rippy.” You can see it -- no, you MUST see it -- at: http://www.examiner.com/x-963-DC-Pop-Culture-Examiner~y2009m7d1-Jon-Stewart-takes-on-Michael-Jackson-media-coverage


A Jefferson For Our Time

Stewart’s program is just about the only broadcast left on commercial TV that endorses Jefferson’s idea that an informed public is a necessity for a free nation. Stewart regularly takes the rest of the broadcast media to task for its grievous failures, skewering them with incisive humor and wit. What does it say about our media world today that this bright light shines on a channel called Comedy Central?


For my media mastery techniques, read “How to Master the Media.”

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