Bob Dylan once sang the words, “I’ll know my song well before I start singin’.” The media teams covering the Newtown, Conn., shooting should have listened up.
As details from the shooting were released, multiple news sources announced Ryan Lanza was the gunman. They were wrong — it was his brother, Adam. That was a colossal mistake. The media have made plenty of those. But they have also served the American people on numerous noteworthy occasions: the Pentagon Papers, Watergate and WikiLeaks, to name a few. Freedom of the press is the very first amendment to our constitution. I’d say that’s pretty significant. We ought to think long and hard before restricting what the press can divulge to us.
It’s overly simplistic to claim that the media make a frenzy out of serious issues. Yes, they dramatize stories, but we eat that stuff up. The only reason news stations can afford to run a 24-hour news cycle is because we continue to watch.
Although I am a serious advocate of an unregulated press, I realize there are many negative consequences that can result from media coverage. I think it’s disgraceful how most Americans can readily tell you who Adam Lanza and James Holmes are, but many choke if asked to name a congressman.
It’s also shameful how the vacation spots of reality television stars and the tumultuous relationships of celebrities pass as newsworthy. Let’s face it: We know more about Jay-Z than we do about Joe Biden.
[quote]But it’s not the media’s fault that these wrongdoers and do-nothings are notorious; it’s ours. We need to take ourselves more seriously and the media will follow suit[/quote] . The media exist to serve us, so as long as we feed into sensational news stories, that is exactly what we’ll get.