Has mainstream media completely lost touch with what you're interested in?

Question

Do you really care about Britney and her alcohol?
How about Howard Stern or American Idol?
What about Anna Nicole?

You tell me...

Answer 1

Mainstream media lost touch a long time ago. I normally read in the morning while I'm eating my breakfast, but just to amuse my curiosity I turned on the Today show this morning to see if there was an update on the story of the British sailors and marines that had been held hostage by Iran. To my unsurprised disappointment, there was no such piece, after all, that would be actual news. Instead, there was a "shocker" about the Anna Nicole Smith story and some guy in a rocket pack with a story about the Jetsons (remember the cartoon?) becoming a reality. I don't get it. How do these networks keep finding new lows? It just gets worse and worse. And the mainstream media wonders why people like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hanity are so popular. Even The O'Reilly Factor is more news-intensive than the morning news shows.

Who cares about who's on American Idol? Does anyone still watch that show? I mean, is watching stupid people react to some English egomaniac still amusing? Is Survivor still on? I have the cheapest cable you can get, I think most providors call it "Basic." Aside from the occassional weather broadcast, Im not sure if it's even worth $11 a month to get it. I rarely watch it anymore, and when I do, I just get irritated and turn it off. I don't even watch sports anymore. I can't stand watching overpaid, oversized children get rich while acting like schoolyard hooligans and selfimportant whiners. TV has lost any sense of good it may have ever had. My father watches a ton of TV and doesn't think it's a problem, but it can't be a coincidence that Americans watch more TV than ever, and have alarming rates of obesity, diabetes, cancer, and systemic health issues.

TV sucks, and so does the media. Come to think of it, movies have pretty much come to the point where 90% of what makes it to theaters sucks as well. Movie houses can't figure out why they're losing money, but how many of us joyfully go out to take our wife or girlfriend to a movie only to spend $20 on movie tickets, $20 on snacks, and then begrudingly endure a movie that is terrible only because we've already invested $40+ in the experience? I can't remember the last good movie I saw in the theater.

Enough griping, I'm going to read now.

Answer 2

The polarisation between people on the left and people on the right aka liberals and conservatives in the USA will always continue to utterly baffle me to be honest. Saying "reject mainstream media" is surely out of hand? Anyone with even an ounce of intelligence in their heads can surely realise that ultimately every media source has its own agenda, some (a lot) more than others? Leave people to make up their own minds however that said, some people are easily led and completely incapable of independent thought.

Answer 3

I think the media has become a desperate child yelling for attention so it will put absolutely anything on in order to capture attention, especially breif attention.
The public seem to consider the media as provider of information (since that is how it is sold) when it is provider of entertainment.... and the awareness of the discrepancy between this ideal and this reality respectively, is what seems to give rise to the sense of the media having lost touch.
I think it is important to remind oneself that this is a RESULT, not a CAUSE. The media will put out what seems to grab the most attention, because that is it's prime role. Those who control the media, to be fair, have a fiscal responsibility to put on whatever will grab the most viewers. There is a line however that has been crossed long ago, and that line represents the limit beyond which the media passes into the sphere of influencing the public and causing mischeif.
Examples of these would be putting news items on that would weaken a country to it's enemies in the name of free speech..... or to put a show like CSI on where the characters fight against things like kiddie porn and sexual murders, but in doing so they get to describe and allow the audience to visualise in enormous detail the very acts they say the characters are fighting against, and so is really violent kiddie porn show. The audience will be emotionally charged by such titillation, and so the show is watched more than other shows that do not do this, but the line is still crossed.
The social trivia examples in your question are not of interest to audience members in terms of depth, but in terms of breif distraction, much like someone jumping in front of you to say 'look at me' and another jumping in saying 'no, look at me' and as soon as you look you realise there is nothing to see beyond the alert to look.... but then it has already been registered as you having looked!

Answer 4

I believe so. I can't stand looking at magazines in the racks at the check-out aisles at the store because they always seem to have the same thing over and over again. Not only does the coverage on celebrities drive me nuts, but also the "new styles" that are "in" this season, etc. The examples that are given are generally out of most people's reach (too expensive). Even the local news seems to contain the same thing - granted, around here there are a lot of murders and crimes that need to be reported, but the way they are glamorized is awful.

Answer 5

It's all about Hollywood, celebrity and look what/who I know. I'm in on what's up. Anchor people can be conceited, elitist snobs and the more they can talk about inside Hollywood, the cooler they think people will think they are. It's a vicious circle. No one I know gives a crap about Brintey, Anna, Stern or the rest. They have real issues and problems... $3.00 a gallon for gas, rising taxes, fewer services, more crime, their children's education... the list of real things people care about would be more than enough to fill newscasts.

Answer 6

Assuming mainstream media refers to the 24/7 channels, they haven't completed the task yet,but they're on their way. Local channel's certainly have, being filled with nothing more than 'gossip type' stories. I don't completely mind celebrity stories, but I deplore the lingering over saturation of them. Viable news like the US dead and wounded soldiers in Iraq and British hostages get passed by. So has the the scandal at Walter Reed Hospital and others like 'Gonzales Gate'!

Answer 7

Yea I agree the media just airs things that are stupid, I'm sick and tired of hearing about Britney Spears, Sanjaya Malikar, Anna Nicole Smithe (R.I.P.) but please stop the media will put out anything to earn a few bucks The stars have a life and so do we

Answer 8

YES, YES, YES!!

I think it's because the true journalist has gone the way of the dinosaur. They are extinct. It is much easier (and cheaper) to cover celebrities then real news. They just repeat the same story other new organizations tell.

I think the reason is....most mainstream news organizations have stopped doing their own research....instead they simply google a story and report what is on the Internet!

Answer 9

It is mainstream media after all. It would be awfully depressing if everyone has the same taste in things. As for my own opinion, well, I stop watching TVs. Not completely, but if watch TV for no more than 2 hours a week, yeah, I stopped watching TV. Does that answer your question? lol.


XR

Answer 10

Oh yes. And no to the Britney,Howard,and etc. The TV in my household is used my younger cousin (10) to watch cartoons and some adult swim if it's Futurama on.