Heading: Media Waning
Subheading: The rapidly changing face of today’s media.
Every time I accidentally flick on to the commercial, free to air, TV stations, I am truly amazed and appalled at what is showing. I try to remember if it has always been this bad or whether it appears worse now, because we have a lot more choice – pay TV, the Internet, DVD’s and the like. Of course, it is particularly bad at this time of the year, Christmas and being outside of the ratings period, but the amount of fluff in their programing is astounding. Reality shows, reality dance shows, Gladiators for god sake, quiz shows, piss weak low budget drama, wall to wall American drivel and news, which is reminiscent of FM radio in the nineties, with so much smiling, local yokel branding, you want to be sick. Quality current affair and drama programs have disappeared. As much as those Channel Nine news personalities were smugly annoying, you could at least sense their journalistic commitment – understandable as they all came from the ABC.
If the rating figures are to be believed, and having worked for Advanced Television Ratings, I can tell you – we do not get a real cross section of the community putting their hand up, to have a people metre attached to every TV in their house (it is quite common these days for families to have 6 TV’s). It is a far more attractive option, for those who regularly like to enter supermarket and radio station competitions, as the ratings company, ATVR, cannot pay people to have the metres on their TV’s, they offer them bonus gift items, like microwave ovens and mobile phone covers – to encourage their participation. You just don’t get busy, intelligent people taking part in these kinds of surveys. But if the ratings figures were to be believed, we definitely do not live in the clever country, unless a whole lot of clever people really like to watch complete rubbish.
Media is now purely entertainment – action movies with stunts and special effects, inane talk shows with staged antics, commercialised sport, PR driven news, reality TV everywhere you look, and I wonder what the mirror is reflecting back to us? Are we smarter than the people watching TV in the 1970′s? The 80′s or 90′s? I don’t think so, not if what we watch is reflecting who we are.
Movies are a hell of a lot worse now, and I think movie making reached a peak in the 70′s, combining strong story lines with characterisation and great dialogue – The Deer Hunter, The Godfather, Sunday Bloody Sunday – where are the likes of these films today? I agree that, Spielberg’s Jaws, introduced us to the teenage led parameters, which have defined movies ever since. We are watching the crap designed for ADHD kiddies, and none of the accountants, who run the industry are complaining – they are, I think, these same kids grown up or sort of grown up anyway.
My main beef with the Media today, however, is the demise of the strong Media owner, who had some passion about what the Media could achieve. Who grew up in the business and cared about what the media could deliver to the communities it served. But siting Murdoch as some last remaining saviour, come on, this is the guy who began the steep decline – giving us commentators instead of real investigative journalism and tabloid exploitation of the basest community appetites. Now the alternative is faceless share holders, demanding bottom lines and ever increasing profits. Do they really care about what journalists are supposed to care about ? The veracity of the story. Selling newspapers, selling advertising space and keeping the account managers happy, are what the corporate media directors are now concerned with – to the exclusion of the needs of the intelligent reader or watcher.
The dumbing down of things, across the board, our political leaders – George. W. Bush and John Howard for ten years, telling you and the rest of the world that they were capable managers. Plagiarism rife in the media – Alan Jones and many more – and in politics our own, Julia Bishop. I remember watching a dumb ass US movie, about some character played by a comedic actor being sent into the future and everyone in the future had succumbed to the PR plunge – nobody knew anything but ad slogans and were surrounded by sexploitation, like on the Internet today. It was actually a great movie, with something to say, about how bloody stupid we have let ourselves become, in return for a nicer house, car and whatever else. Your house, may be now be worth a million dollars, but it doesn’t mean that you have not blocked out large chunks of your social responsibility in return for a pay off. Perhaps the process and the result are related.
I think for news to work, people have to care about what is being reported, both the new’s journalist and the audience are required to give a shit. We do not have that today – the newsroom is seemingly run by performing monkeys working for accountants. It is now all about about entertainment and money. The visual medium has numbed us, with its indiscriminate coverage of tragedy the world over, and we have meaning fatigue from overload. We see the pictures, but we are not so moved anymore. Too many celebrities on the scene and who really wants to see a dying or dead baby? Dots or pixels on the screen making recognisable shapes for an ever shorter, meaningful moment.
The Media today is all about making money. Some say that the Media has always been about making money. Does the Media have any responsibility outside of its money making entertainment value? Do we harp on about members of the Media being so called role models, as we do with sport’s people? Do we examine these same, self righteous, commentators, with the same conviction, as our weekend ball playing heroes? I don’t think so.
Sport’s journalism is, in my opinion, at its lowest ever ebb, it is hardly ever about the game but always about the star players – their falls and foibles – in stark contrast to the sanitised commercial image of the business of playing football. I always read an undercurrent of journalistic jealousy, in the reports of these modern day Achilles. Sporting endeavour is about the quest for glory, and the schmuck in the pub is still dreaming of his own unrealised potential. He doesn’t really want to read about the bullshit and corruption, which underpin sports in the commercial arena. He knows about that intimately in his own life – why his boss is ripping him off and why everybody hates the boss at work. Tell us about the game and the glorious acts, which were committed in fulfilling the crazy quest to win, we can see the game on countless screens, but sharing the joy with language befitting a writer, is something sadly lacking. Mr sport’ s journalist you are a writer, a communicator – why not Matt Price like, tell us your story and let us in. We want to share your appreciation of the unlikely and laugh with you at the courage shown by these tribal warriors while chasing a ball and never giving in.
If the Media is cynical, if the mirror does not reflect the magic all around; then we will all turn to our own personal media- and maybe that is not a bad thing.
©Sudha Hamilton
