There you are, cruising along the interstate, enjoying the easy flow of traffic and an old Eagles song on the radio. You chime in: “Life’s been good to me so far.” Suddenly, you round a curve and confront a sea of blazing taillights. You hit the brakes and ask yourself what the heck just happened. Traffic has been reduced to a crawl. The Eagles segué into Rod Stewart, wondering “if you want my body and you think I’m sexy.” You groan and punch the off button. The minutes slowly pass. You inch forward until you spy the flashing lights of emergency vehicle up ahead. It’s an accident. But it’s on the other side of the highway! Drivers have slowed down to gawk. The prospect of witnessing something shocking and gruesome is too tempting to resist.
The news media is just like that. They can’t resist drawing attention to things that are shocking and gruesome—and unnecessarily turning minor kerfuffles into major ruckuses. We have the media to thank for making the Reverend Terry Jones an international sensation. If you’re one of the handful of folks who has yet to hear of this pissant excuse for a preacher, he has garnered the spotlight for declaring this September 11 to be International Burn-A-Koran Day. He and his 50 or so followers in Gainesville, Florida are vowing to set thousands of the Muslim holy book ablaze on that day. To date, everyone from Hillary Clinton to General David Petraeus to the Pope himself has denounced this inflammatory event. I hear Gandhi has risen from the dead just to wag his finger and call Terry Jones a putz. And the more our religious, political, and military leaders speak out against Jones, the more the media reports. The campfire has become a conflagration.
At least one fellow in the media has made the connection and is calling his brethren out. Mike Thomas of the Orlando Sentinel wrote a pointed op-ed piece yesterday that minces no words:
What if media had ignored Terry Jones?
The Rev. Terry Jones was a sad-sack preacher, lucky to draw 50 people to his steel-shed house of prayer, when the words “burn” and “Quran” had an unfortunate collision in his limited brain.
That he has become an international phenomenon as a result must be a sign the apocalypse is near.
We actually have Gen. David Petraeus, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the White House and even the pope pleading with a hick pastor not to burn books. This is a guy who looks like Jed Clampett wearing a Hulk Hogan mustache, who uses words like “tragical,” who earlier this year launched a “No homo mayor” campaign against a candidate in Gainesville.
Last year Jones sent the kids of the congregation off to school in “Islam is of the devil” T-shirts. Of course they got booted, which got Jones an enticing taste of media attention.
But that was small taters. There are a million Muslim bashers in the big city, and Jones had to do better to hit the big time.
So he got a big old sign and put it on a big old truck in a big old field. It said: “International Burn a Koran Day.”
Ding! Ding! Ding!
It was like the three strawberries coming into alignment on a million-dollar slot machine. The New York Times and The Associated Press whipped out their notepads. The networks and cable stations broke out the indignant anchors. [full article]
Kmareka.com 
Yes! Lately several media hounds have hit gold with public displays of bigotry and hate. Free advertising.
This goes beyond merely heckstering bigotry and hate by the media.
There has been a sea change in journalism,both print and visual,but especially in the latter.
Journalists have gone from reporting the news to becoming,in many cases,instigators of events.the media becomes part of the story-thereby losing the “distance” they need.
Let me say here that I am not referring to investigative reporting which is using proactive means to reveal a situation that already exists.
This applies across the board-to any of the media operations,right or left wing,they drink at the same well of sensationalism and “hooks”-the constatnly repeated video clips and statements-often quite out of context and barely scraping the surface of accuracy and with no depth at all.
I recall Nancy Grace insinuating herself into the case of a woman suspected of killing her little son.She just couldn’t let the police handle it,could she?the woman then committed suicide ad the child’s remains will probably never be returned to his father for burial.That was some scoop,wasn’t it?
Another example:Christiane Amanpour practically questioning Bill Clinton’s masculinity when she kept harrassing and challenging him to “get involved”in the Kosovo situation,leading to the horrific bombing of Belgrade,the capital of a country which never did one thing against the US.
We got involved in what was a European situation and Amanpour was pushing for action instead of reporting on the progress of events.
There are “stock”actors,both left and right infesting cable and making money for blathering irresponsibily about anything that’s “hot”.
I do really like the fact that Cspan runs a show like “In Depth”,onre of the few truly intelligent uses of all that available”bandwith” that exists.Three hours with someone gives you an idea of what they are really about.
The media also ignore really important stories to bombard us with salacious nonsense about such bimbos as Anna Nicole Smith,Lindsay Lohan,Paris Hilton,Kim Kardashian,etc.
They COULD spend the time doing some serious analysis,which the public could use about now-but no,they treat the public like sheep who have to be kept entertained by trash.
I barely watch the news anymore.
You people here don’t like Fox,but I don’t think Chris Matthews talking over people and never letting them get a word in edgewise is as empty and offensive as O’Reilly screaming at them.
Remember Morton Downey Jr.?At least he didn’t pretend to be a journalist.
We had limited resources of news when I was growing up,and the process itself didn’t permit the latest tick in every situation to suddenly go worldwide.There was time for evaluation and verification back then -now it’s scream first and check the facts later,if at all.
I think that we pretty much see eye to eye on this issue. I also no longer bother to watch what passes for news on television. Although I enjoy watching Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert skewer the media–Fox News, more often than not–for their rampant blather and hypocrisy. It’s sad, and more than a little concerning, that responsible journalism has become an oxymoron and that so many people cannot distinguish the wheat from the chaff.
I honestly think some people realize that Stewart and Colbert are not actually journalists-it gets murky.Sort of like the film”Shutter Island”.
One more thing-the constsnt repetition of video/sound bites is,as far as I can see,a planned means of conditioning the public,trying to turn us into Pavlov’s dogs.The same mental conditioning used by gaming designers(video games and slots).
I will say that History,Discovery,TLC,and Travel are some good channels.
You’re getting rave reviews for this piece on FB David!
I meant to say DON’T realize above.The younger crowd is who I was referring to.
There is a reason that the younger crowd may experience confusion about what is journalism and what is not. They are coming of age in a time when journalism has loosened its standards, morphed into infotainment, and become a corporatized industry. The growth of cable television and the internet has fueled this change. Traditional journalism cannot compete, which is why so many newspapers have reduced staff or folded up their tents. Blogs and e-zines have become news outlets of a sort but lack the journalistic training and standards that we grew accustomed to in the (g)olden days. The lines have blurred considerably. So how’s a young ‘un to know any different?
Also, in fairness to Jon Stewart, there have been occasions in which he has conducted harder-hitting interviews with political leaders than anyone in the mainstream media. I remember him pointedly questioning John McCain’s chameleon-like positions at one point in the 2008 Presidential campaign and really unsettling the Senator. In contrast, I recall a pathetically unchallenging interview NBC’s Matt Lauer conducted with President Bush during his second term. So who was more of a journalist?
It’s all very dismaying.
Matt Lauer?You need to give a barf alert when bringing up “reporters” like him.
I remember once he was interviewing Mariah Carey,one of my favorite,if unbalanced singers,and it was clear she wasn’t all there-meds or mild derangement,who knows,but he was actually sweating her on tv!!What a nerd.
Maurie Povitch watch out.
some news networks have decided not to show film of the book burning stunt, if it happens. there’s such a thing as editorial discretion, which is called for in this situation where a publicity hound is cranking up the hate and getting his fifteen minutes of fame.
It turns out that this Buddy Ebsen lookalike(apologies to the late Buddy)is a pal of the Westboro Baptist Church nitwits.Hard to believe,huh?
Apparently he and his wife use church “students”to work without wages in a commercial concern she owns.
These people make Jimmy Swaggert loook like Mother Teresa.
MAYBE IT IS TIME TO SPEAK-UP ABOUT THE TYRANTS OF THE WORLD AND PUT THEM IN THEIR PLACE. WE LET ADOLPH HITLER AND HIROHITO COME TO POWER DURING THE 1930’S AND THAT BROUGHT US INTO WWII WITH A HUGE COST IN LIVES TO FIGHT THAT WAR AND THEN THE KOREAN WAR AND THEN VIETNAM AND NOW THE IRAQI AND AFGHANISTAN WARS. SINCE 1945 WE HAVE SPENT OVER 116 YEARS AT WAR AT A HUGE COST IN THE LIVES OF SERVICEMEN AND WOMEN BUT IN HUGE COSTS FROM THE TAXPAYERS WHILE THE INFRASTRUCTURE, EDUCATION AND MANY OTHER THINGS HAVE SUFFERED IN OUR OWN COUNTRY. WHERE ARE THE OIL SHEIKS IN SAUDI ARABIA & 0PEC COUNTRIES TO HELP THE PAKINSTANI’S WITH THIS CURRENT FLOOD DISASTER? WHERE ARE THESE SAME MEN WHEN THESE DISASTERS HIT IN THE COUNTRIES RULED BY THEIR RELIGIONS? THE UNITED STATES CAN NO LONGER BORROW MONEY FROM CHINA AND GIVE IT AWAY AS AID TO THESE OTHER COUNTRIES. IT IS TIME WE START TO TAKE CARE OF OUR OWN CITIZENS. INSTEAD OF CUTTING SERVICES TO VETERANS & DISABLED PEOPLE HERE AT HOME WE SHOULD EXPAND THESE SERVICES SO THAT MANY OF THESE DISABLED PEOPLE CAN GO TO WORK EACH AND EVERYDAY AND LIVE WITH DIGNITY LIKE OTHER AMERICANS. OUR CHILDREN SHOULD BE GETTING THE BEST HEALTH CARE IN THE WORLD BUT HUGE PARTS OF THEM DO NOT GET AND BETTER HEALTH CARE THAN 3RD WORLD COUNTRIES WE NEED TO GET BETTER EDUCATION TO OUR CHILDREN SO THAT THEY CAN GET A COLLEGE EDUCATION INSTEAD OF TEACHING STUDENTS FROM OTHER COUNTRIES THAT GO TO COLLEGE HERE AND LEARN HOW TO MAKE A NUCLEAR BOMB LIKE INDIA,IRAN & PAKISTAN HAS. HOW CAN WE JUSTIFY OTHER NATIONS TO DISARM THEMSELVES WHEN WE HAVE THOUSANDS OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS STORED UP? INSTEAD OF SPENDING TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO SEND A MANNED SPACESHIP TO MARS WE NEED TO TAKE THAT MONEY AND INVEST THAT MONEY BACK INTO OUR PLANET WHERE IT IS NEEDED AND ONLY SEND PROBES TO THE OTHER PLANETS AND MOONS OF THE PLANETS OF OUR SOLAR SYSTEM. REMEMBER APOLLO-13 WE ALMOST DIDN’T GET THOSE ASTRONAUTS BACK FROM THEIR TRIP AROUND THE MOON AND BACK TO EARTH. NO OTHER PLANET IN INHABITABLE IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM SO WHY DO WE NEED TO SEND MEN TO MARS OR BACK TO THE MOON. AT THIS POINT IN TIME IT IS TOO EXPENSIVE TO SEND MEN INTO SPACE EXCEPT TO THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION.
Hear,Hear!!All CAPS totally justified in your post brother.
If we want to see humans on other planets,we can watch Star Trek.
How could you overlook the ultimate symbol of the crassness of this journalistic fiasco when “The Donald” injected himself into the controversy?
OMG-is there gonna be a “reality”show about this.
I absolutely will not watch “reality” shows-what the hell kind of programs are Intervention and Hoarders-what sick fascination do people have to peek into the lives of humans destroying themselves for entertainment?Or slobs?Any teenager’s closet should suffice for the satisfaction of someone who wants to see a mess.
Gimme Jeopardy any day.Or The Honeymooners.
Reality shows are to reality what news shows are to news.