Gullibility in modern life
The subject of the homily is Balloon Boy hype, and I shall take Good Morning America's rather tense interview with Clifford Irving as my text.
I'm not sure exactly what GMA expected Irving to say, but he nailed the situation by saying "the pomposity... outweighs its seriousness." Not exactly what you expect a hired talking head to say, but the truth. As Chris Cuomo visibly lost control of the interview, Irving added that "this hoax is only possible because the media loves [these stories] so much and feeds them to an extremely gullible public," both of which are also true.
Irving might have added that the media's gullibility equals or exceeds that of its audience, but GMA saved him the trouble. In its rogue's gallery of hoaxes, the programme included the 2007 guerrilla marketing of Aqua Teen Hunger Force in Boston. GMA gently elided over the fact that all the gullibility on that occasion was shown by local law enforcement and news media, while pretty much the whole country under 30 laughed their heads off at such idiotic overreaction to a comic character.
It's interesting that this has all happened whilst the White House and Fox News have been having their pissing contest. The White House is perfectly correct: Fox "News" isn't journalism. It's a blundering mix of low comedy and propaganda, with producers and newscasters completely unaware that what they think of as ratings boosters is taken seriously by an armed and none-too-bright portion of their audience.
The difficulty for the White House is that broadcast journalism generally is an oxymoron (accent on the moron) and the Administration has no particular issues with the rest of the medium. But the other networks aren't doing journalism either. They have less propaganda but just as much unintended humour.
For much of the past two days, we the audience have been treated to a torrent of sulky self-defence for an overblown story that could have benefited from a little background work and critical thinking: you know, stuff that journalists are supposed to do? One comparison that has disappeared quickly was to the BBC's April Fool's Day story in 1957 on the Swiss spaghetti harvest.
The difference was that the BBC meant that as a joke, and that's not a comparison the networks want to dwell upon.
I'm not sure exactly what GMA expected Irving to say, but he nailed the situation by saying "the pomposity... outweighs its seriousness." Not exactly what you expect a hired talking head to say, but the truth. As Chris Cuomo visibly lost control of the interview, Irving added that "this hoax is only possible because the media loves [these stories] so much and feeds them to an extremely gullible public," both of which are also true.
Irving might have added that the media's gullibility equals or exceeds that of its audience, but GMA saved him the trouble. In its rogue's gallery of hoaxes, the programme included the 2007 guerrilla marketing of Aqua Teen Hunger Force in Boston. GMA gently elided over the fact that all the gullibility on that occasion was shown by local law enforcement and news media, while pretty much the whole country under 30 laughed their heads off at such idiotic overreaction to a comic character.
It's interesting that this has all happened whilst the White House and Fox News have been having their pissing contest. The White House is perfectly correct: Fox "News" isn't journalism. It's a blundering mix of low comedy and propaganda, with producers and newscasters completely unaware that what they think of as ratings boosters is taken seriously by an armed and none-too-bright portion of their audience.
The difficulty for the White House is that broadcast journalism generally is an oxymoron (accent on the moron) and the Administration has no particular issues with the rest of the medium. But the other networks aren't doing journalism either. They have less propaganda but just as much unintended humour.
For much of the past two days, we the audience have been treated to a torrent of sulky self-defence for an overblown story that could have benefited from a little background work and critical thinking: you know, stuff that journalists are supposed to do? One comparison that has disappeared quickly was to the BBC's April Fool's Day story in 1957 on the Swiss spaghetti harvest.
The difference was that the BBC meant that as a joke, and that's not a comparison the networks want to dwell upon.
Labels: Balloon Boy, media criticism
posted by Uncle | 23:18
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