There are millions of things happening in the world today; the war in Iraq, the genocide and exploitation in Darfur, or the countless murders that continue to ravage my home town. While all of these things are depressing you must admit that they are news worthy and play an important part in understanding the world in which we live.
So why is it that every morning I turn on the Today show I get a quadruple dose of Britney Spears, Baby Dannilynn, or the life and times of Brangelina? Is it just me or has the media lost its complete mind? Seriously. Why should anyone care that Britney & K-Fed are fighting for custody? If you ask me they are both dumb asses.
Sidebar: Whitney & Bobby are not playing their divorce and custody arrangements in the media. There is something to be said for crackheads with class. I digress.
I thought the purpose of the news was to allow us to see our world in an educated and unbiased light. The media does plenty of defending themselves on this issue saying this is the stuff of ratings and it is what the people want. I am beginning to believe Nielsen is a hoax and no one has one of those little boxes, because at last check no one I talked to gave a damn about whether Britney was fat, Nicole Richie’s baby bump or whether Jennifer Anniston still has the hots for Brad.
I understand that the news can be depressing. Poverty is depressing. Ambiguous job security is depressing. The wars are depressing, but is this fluff any less depressing. Have we reached a point we have to have even our news dumbed down?
Let’s be realistic here. While I am not a natural conspiracy theorist the fact that the media is force feeding us all this crap lends credence to those who are. What exactly is being hidden? Why are we being denied true news? Does the government feel so insecure with their decisions that they are purposely filling our heads with stupidity to keep us from asking the real questions? Maybe that’s too far, but somewhere in the far reaches of my mind I don’t think so.
There used to be a time when the News and Tabloid TV like entertainment tonight had very different lead stories, now they seem like one seamlessly blended show. It makes me wonder. Why are we following so blindly? I have seen futuristic shows where the inhabitants no longer thought for themselves and had all opinions fed to them as children growing to be mindless drones in a society where a few had control over the masses. We’re not that far from that now…
Just a thought.
