Our media outlets realize that humans, for the most part, like drama. Humans like things they can talk about at the water cooler. One example is Kanye West's rant during the Hurricane Relief Telethon. The subjects of his rant were the following photos:
Many were outraged by these captions, seemingly proving that the media was depicting events with a racial bias. People were upset, they had something to talk about, I was one of them. What our media does not provide, is resolution. Did anyone hear as much furor about the subsequent interviewing of the two photographers that took these photos? Did anyone hear that the man in the top picture was actually witnessed taking (I refuse to use the term stealing) the food he was carrying? Did anyone hear that the couple in the bottom picture had taken the food from the water it was floating in without actually entering a store? I would like to know why we never heard the resolution to this story. My guess is that the resolution isn't as sensational as the accusation. For more info I recommend the snopes article, or even this article from SouthCoastToday. I am glad I figured out, at least in this case, that our media is not operating with a racial bias. What I can't figure out is whether we as consumers, or the media as providers are to blame for our sensationalism as a country.
I used to habitually check the "Most Popular News" link on Yahoo news every day, just to see what was going on. There was a story that ran in that category for several days, "Fats Domino Missing in New Orleans." The story that didn't run in this category, EVER, was the article headlined "Fats Domino Rescued." If someone like myself had only looked at the popular news, he or she would STILL think Fats Domino was missing. In this instance we as consumers are definitely the ones to blame. Users rank those stories by either viewing them (in one category) or ranking them (in another.) I wonder when and how we will ever have a media that gives us the WHOLE STORY.
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