We wanted to chime in on the controversy surrounding Don Imus and his doltish comment regarding the Rutgers’ women’s basketball team, but what could we possibly say that hasn’t already been said in the media frenzy?
If you watched CNN or one of the other 24-hour news channels Tuesday, you might have walked away with the impression that nothing else happened in the world.
We don’t mean to trivialize Imus’ remark; it was juvenile and bigoted. But was it really worth the near-exclusive coverage it received on the 24-hour news stations? Was this really the only thing happening in the world on that particular day? This might not be a reason for concern if this was an isolated incident, but the tunnel vision mentality on cable news channels has become the norm.
Just earlier this week, we were inundated with continuous updates on the DNA tests to find out whether Larry Birkhead really was the father of Anna Nicole Smith’s 7-month-old daughter. As correspondents stood by in the Bahamas, ready to break the big news, the ticker at the bottom of the TV screen flashed news updates in Iraq and around the world.
Does the relentless coverage really serve viewers’ needs or does it just serve to fill broadcast time? Understandably, these networks need to attract high ratings to satisfy their financial obligations, but do viewers watch their incessant coverage of Imus and Smith because it’s what they want, or do they watch it because it’s the only thing the networks provide? It’s a perplexing question that rivals the issue of which came first, the chicken or the egg.
In 1958, Edward R. Murrow said TV can “teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can only do so to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise, it is merely wires and lights in a box.” Cable news has as much potential to be a source of distraction as it does to be a source of information. Whether it becomes one or the other depends entirely on what we choose to do with it.
