OPINION: The media fondness for fluff

Clearly, these are the sorts of things we need to know about a candidate to make a sound, informed decision as to whether or not he deserves our votes.

Sarcasm aside, it would seem that the mass media in this country would have its audience filled with fluff (useless information) rather than knowledge and an understanding of real current events.

Take Time magazine for example. If you were to browse Time’s covers over the last few months, you would find that the cover of the American issue almost always differs from its other international issues. Where the European, Asian and South Pacific issues might showcase covers featuring the European market crisis or the conflict in Syria, the U.S. edition features more light-hearted stories such as “Animal Friendships” and “Why Anxiety is Good For You.”

Of course, things get even worse in a heated election year. We’ve already seen Twitter battles fought over which presidential candidate takes better care of dogs (Obama eats them, Romney straps them to his Cadillac). I can only ponder what key topics will ultimately decide the 2012 presidential election. Will it be tax code, environmental policies, social issues or which candidate has the best hair?

I’m not blaming the American public for its lack of knowledge or interest in current affairs. After all, there are so many horrible things happening around the world every day, it can be much more comforting to live in a self-consumed fantasy world. I too am guilty of becoming completely engulfed in my favorite books or TV shows from time to time. Yet, I would argue that more Americans would pay attention to international news and serious subjects if the information were more readily available.

Sadly, our incredibly dense and pervasive popular culture seems to overshadow almost all other issues. Not to mention that digging through the diluted, biased media outlets in search of facts can be quite a challenge.

In my opinion, the primary blame falls on the major media corporations. It seems that commercial interests control our entire culture. There is much to be said about political polarization affecting the mainstream media. Of course we have our liberal and conservative political pundits spitting off their own narrow opinions and passing it off as news to the masses, but the true cause for concern is the greed of these conglomerates.

The fact is, the media prints what sells rather than what is actually news. After all, we live in the country that made tabloids famous.

Mark Twain once said, “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re misinformed.”

I would amend his final statement to, “If you read the news, you are dis-informed,” meaning that you are intentionally deceived.

Still, the cycle will continue.

I can only urge newsreaders to look to other independent sources and try to sort through all the fluff in the American media.

Cameron Whitlock is a sportswriter for The Commerce News. He lives in Athens.