If I see one more thing about Michael Jackson I’m going to puke.
As I was heading home from Rome, a guy in the seat in front of me had a USA Today with a full page spread and giant picture of Michael Jackson. I couldn’t read the text, but it was pretty obvious that he had died. Ever since I got home, every newspaper front page and every TV news station has been droning endlessly about Michael Jackson and rehashing every last detail pertaining to his death.
I don’t care and I don’t want to hear about it. It doesn’t interest me.
If I were biking somewhere outside of Williamsburg and crashed into a ditch and died where nobody could immediately see me, it could be a week before people even noticed I was missing. It might be up to two weeks before someone would think to file a police report and even longer before anyone would find my body. Few would care that I was missing or died, and such is the case for the thousands of people that die every day. None of them get news of their death plastered all over newspapers and television for days on end, and most of the world really wouldn’t care to hear about it.
The problem with this is that this is difficult to get away from when relying on broadcast media alone. Turn on the TV and it’s Michael Jackson. Turn on AM talk radio and it’s Michael Jackson. Open to the front page of the newspaper and it’s Michael Jackson. The good thing is that with the power of the Internet, and social networking, it’s easier to find alternative sources that give you the news you are interested in. The Internet is the great equalizer in that you no longer have to mindlessly read, watch, or hear what media executives want you to see. You can read about the topics you are interested in from a wide range of sources.
Those in broadcast media don’t like this paradigm shift. They file suits complaining of copyright infringement, claiming that they are losing money due to DVRs and piracy. The real issue isn’t as much monetary as it is control: broadcast media wants you to watch only what they feed you and only at the time they want you to see it.
Since broadcast media isn’t willing to embrace the Internet, they even try to restrict the freedom it brings in ways much more backhanded than traditional lawsuits. Recently, the New York Times worked with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales to stifle edits about a Times journalist being captured in Afghanistan. While hiding the news about the capture was meant to save the journalist’s life, if it were anything but a journalist that was captured, news of the capture would be blasted all around the world by the same news outlets trying to keep this case quiet. It’s as if those in the media industry think they are on a plane above everyone else. They want to think our thoughts for us and only show us what they want us to see. Most people just blindly follow along as evidenced by comments in blogs and Facebook. It’s time to stop being sheep.
I find myself watching almost no TV and reading the newspaper less and less, skipping through most of the stories and only reading the things I’m interested in. Personalized Google News and Digg do a halfway decent job of filtering out broadcast media’s force feeding. Maybe soon everyone will realize that plenty of other things happened today than the decision of who is receiving custody of Michael Jackson’s kids.
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