In his quest to find the best format for mildly entertaining and educational “podding” Jimmy sits alone in his mancave and opines about today’s headlines. He discusses the downing of a Malaysian passenger jet, a celebrity “package,” rogue police officers, the types of people who use facebook and the overall general absurdity of today’s news. Once again, you can now find all Jimmy’s podcasts on Itunes so you can listen anywhere at any time. Just type in the key word “jimmysintension.” Enjoy!
Dammit. Because of you, my Google search history now includes the terms ‘Justin Thereaux’s Package.’
How was it??
Bulge. Sorry.
To touch on “getting eyes on a story”:
It’s particularly sad that in order to draw in readership/visitors/viewership, stories must be made “relevant” to those taking in the news.
By focusing on what types of people perished, news stations promote this thinking of “forget that PEOPLE(women, men, and children) died, there was at least one American on the plane”. Of the 200+ individuals killed, it is seen as important to note that there was at least one of “our kind” on the plane.
Click across each “news” station(if you wanna believe that CNN/Fox News/etc reports anything other pure garbage), and a fixated headline that appears is “X amount of AMERICANS died” or “X amount of Americans believed to be on plane”.
Completely understandable that we would want to report how international events relate to us on a domestic level, and of course viewers would want to know if there were or how many Americans were killed or if Americans were affected in some way, BUT it’s when that aspect becomes the predominant feature of the story that in a way it becomes ethnocentric.
IMO, it is more important to focus on the fact that something heartbreaking happened here, lives were lost. PEOPLE died, not just one of ours.
Just a bit about ethnocentrism in our news:
http://www.drabruzzi.com/ethnocentrism_in_american_news.htm
-important quote here: “…U.S. news agencies almost always choose stories of events that occur within the U.S. or that directly involve Americans.
-another note is that all US stories that involved international matters, still focused heavily onrelation to America and American casualties.(i.e. Israeli-Palestinian Conflict)
Another wonderful read:
Deciding What’s News: A Study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, Newsweek, and Time
by Herbert J Gans
🙂
Hello “A” (if that’s your real name!)…thank you so much for your contribution. Your response has so much fodder for opinion. I cannot stand the “# of Americans killed” bullshit as it directly demeans the lives of all others. Why do we need to know the # of Americans killed? It serves absolutely no purpose AT ALL and is patriotic propaganda. Funny you should mention the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because I am contemplating writing a blog on it right now though am hesitant because (as I currently believe, though could change with more research) it is a deeply emotional conflict with very little reason involved…and I have a lot of pro-Israel friends who may not be pleased. I am not stating at all that I am pro-Palestinian though I am allowing, and quite willing, to follow what my objective research demonstrates. Thank you again! And I think I should get on that blog right away.