You can’t walk into a corner store these days without the police blotter newspaper slapping you in the face. What was originally designed as a shameful deterrent to criminals has become something like a badge of honor. Who else is buying these papers, little old ladies trying to keep their neighborhoods safe? Right.
It used to be that sex sells. Now it’s mugshots. If mugshots didn’t sell, my local ABC affiliate wouldn’t rotate them in the marginalia of their home page. The guy who shoplifted a six pack of beer is news? Why not post a link to the story and let me choose to glorify that person by staring at their mugshot. I’ll tell you why, because mugshots are like train wrecks. We can’t take our eyes off of them. And in the business of keeping eyeballs on a site, sensationalistic images do the trick.
Why else would CNN use this image as their hook for the story on the Gabrielle Giffords shooting in Arizona? The fact that this asshole was able to project his giddy, murderous enthusiasm to the world, is like pissing on the victims. And it reinforces how fucked up we are as a society of humans that we allow ourselves to be manipulated this easily by the media.
Sensationalism sells. And money drives the bus. Shame on us for being so simple.
***
SuzanneVara
Jan 11, 2011
JimSo well said. The link bait/ratings bait has played such a big role. The ad dollars matter. No other way to say it. The stations need the attention so they go to what will give them that attention. A mug shot gives them the attention. There is the respect for the families of the victims and I support that however the hot story is the mug shot. WE GOT IT. We are showing it (and running to check the traffic).There are 2 sides to this. Yes, the public wants to see who was behind this. They want that the image that they have created for themselves to match the person that committed the crime. Closure of some sort? The other side is this sensationalism. The attention that is given to suspects/criminals fuels others to want that attention. They need it, they are incapable of understanding that the consequences are so far beyond the few days of fame that they receive. They are willing to pay the ultimate price for that attention. The media supports this by virtue of reporting. However when we are talking link baiting and ratings bait, is it going to far? I do think so sometimes. The stations need the money from the advertising. The advertisers will pay top dollar to the #1. You can only be #1 if you are taking the risks and pulling in the people. Is this responsible reporting? Thank you for talking about this as I have had so many discussions IRL about this. You are giving it all so far in 2011. I appreciate that!
Doug Kleeman
Jan 11, 2013
Great post, Jim.
I share in your outrage over the endless outpouring of news sensationalism. Somewhere along the line, the role of “news journalism” went from informing the masses on relavent, useful and important stories to entertaining, arousing and tactfully shocking the shit out of audiences.
The unfortunate part is that this stuff would all go away if people didn’t pay any mind to it. So really, the only thing news organizations are guilty of is figuring out a way to monetize the pathetic, innate gossip gears that fuel human curiosity. As you mentioned, there’s something undeniably alluring about watching trainwrecks. It’s the reason why we read about mass murderers on CNN.com and also why we watch the Real Housewives of (Insert Some Depressing Destination Here) on Bravo.
Crazy people make us feel better about ourselves. And media companies are pharmaceuticals, feeding us the pills we need to soften the pain of our remarkably normal, remarkably uneventful lives — convincing us all the while that there was something wrong with them to begin with.
Assholes.
Guns - obsessed with conformity obsessed with conformity
Aug 26, 2015
[…] get your hands on some quality rapid fire guns? Dude, you have a chance to be king of the world and get your picture all over the news. Who cares if you die, you’ll have died with your boots on. And thanks to sensationalistic media, […]
Guns Are Devices to Kill -
Aug 30, 2015
[…] get your hands on some quality killing devices. Then you have a chance to be king of the world and get your picture all over the news. Who cares if you die? At least you’ll die with your boots on. And thanks to sensationalistic […]