Reporters as Vampires

Quote of the day:
“Our dignity is not in what we do but what we understand. The whole world is doing things.”
--George Santayana

Quote of the day no. 2:
“This deranged young man had a maelstrom of demons swirling about him. But partisans want us to pick one all-explanatory demon.”
--Jonah Goldberg, in today’s Chicago Tribune.

Goldberg is referring to the man who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech last week. He also has a cogent criticism of press coverage of last week’s tragedy:

“It’s difficult to see the line between enough and too much [news coverage] when journalists go wild, competing for the slightest new morsel of information to put on a permanent TV loop until the next fragmentary detail is pried loose.

“Because there isn’t enough new information to fill the infinite void allotted to these stories, the press quickly succumbs to a kind of emotional vampirism, feeding off the grief, fear and anguish of victims clearly incapable of finding meaning in events that defy either understanding or meaning.”

This is an excellent summary of the both the basic problem facing cable news channels and the irksome way the problem is dealt with.

We’ve lived in the era of “events coverage” since the first Gulf war in 1991. People tuned in by the millions to check on the minute-by-minute progress of that war.

Since then, play-by-play “events” broadcasting has almost completely displaced news reporting and issues analysis. News stories that can be easily covered as “events” become the primary focus. We are seeing lots of coverage of police chases and crimes in progress.

And the play-by-play is exceedingly slow. Instead of facts gathered and assembled into a coherent report about a news event, we hear all kinds time-filler between small, new bits of information presented by sometimes barely articulate, ad-libbing anchors.

The time-filler takes the form of “expert” commentary when there is little to really comment on--so it becomes speculation. Or it takes the form of numbingly inconsequential interviews with people who are only remotely connected to the event. Or it takes the form of emotionally invasive questions asked of people in so much pain they can barely think clearly.

None of these time-fillers are especially helpful or informative. Like all good time-fillers, they are there (you guessed it) to fill time.

Goldberg also says this:

“We can be sure the media will continue to milk their role as remorse voluptuaries for as long as conceivably possible.”

I wish I could end on a hopeful note. But as Walter Cronkhite used to say, “That’s the way it is.”