LETTER FROM THE EDITOR 1/08/08
A recent story on AOL was headlined: "Unflattering Photo of Cindy Lauper." That was it.
The celebrity gossip site that published the headline and story, obviously thought people would click just to see the singer looking bad. And they were probably right. It was another symptom of a problem that is going unnoticed today.
While we pay distracted attention to problems like global warming and war in Iraq, we are ignoring what we are becoming as a people: a society that loves gossip and the nasty putdown; a people absolutely enthralled by the lurid.
This is not news to anyone. But it is also not something we think about. And therein lies the problem. Is it us? Or is it the tone of our television, radio, newspapers and internet?
There was a book with a wonderful title written back in the '60's: "They Became What They Beheld." The words are a prediction of what has been happening. That catch-all word 'media' describes a part of life that is inescapable today. Wherever we go, there is media: talking and pictures and words, and most of it is angry and mean and gossipy. What we behold is anger and meanness and gossip.
Jerry Springer was one of the first to make a media sensation of explosive anger. Rush Limbaugh demonstrated how a knack with the cruel quip could create a star. Now we have the nastiness of Shaun Hannity and Bill O'Reilly, who often leave the realm of logic just to insult someone; or the studied indignation of Nancy Grace, who uses self-righteous anger to pronounce guilt on people who have not yet been to trial, and a host of lesser luminaries who use 'media' to insult, gossip and put out the worst view of others that they can.
It is impossible to resist beholding this, and to some degree, becoming it. Given a choice between learning about the Amazon or the death of Anna Nichole Smith, it was hard to turn away from the excitement of the news presented about Smith. But it was also hard to get away from it. Smith was everywhere on television, and a startling amount of time was spent by various talking heads just discussing what might happen in the future, making long-winded guesses that hooked audiences of millions, making ratings soar. Yeah, I watched it too...and I felt a little dirty afterwards. Didn't you?
So is it my fault for not turning to the History Channel, or is the problem that there was so little history but so much Smith on every form of media? And if it's not Smith, it's Spears or Cruise, or someone else who is being publicly dissected in the most invasive and negative way. Celebrity gossip is a haven for the distributors of this kind of social pornography; where a photographed conversation between two actors is presented as an adulterous affair; where a snapshot of cellulite on the bikinied butt of a well known woman is worth thousands of dollars.
The gossip doesn't even have to be true. Hillary Clinton was pilloried for "breaking down," and getting "teary" at a campaign stop. Yet the frequently televised clip of that moment showed nothing of the sort. Her voice lowered and she bent her head. No tears, no breakdown.
We don't seem to care anymore whether the gossip is true or not. We seem to just want scandalous tales about others---the rich, the famous, the guy who killed that woman, our neighbors. The more lurid, the more entertained we are. The media yelling, the anger, the gossip---it is truly an assault on our characters that we don't even realize is happening.
I don't believe there has been an actual downsizing of the American character. I think we have drifted into it, more through a lack of attention than anything else. We don't pay actual attention to what Sean Hannity says; we don't pick out a comment and think to ourselves, "Whoa, that's pretty mean!" We don't call a stop to the media meanness and gossip because we have adjusted to it, we aren't really aware of how bad it has become.
But it still spills over into our own lives. When we hear a talk show host call people an idiot often enough, it becomes easier for us to label someone an idiot. When we hear frequent media gossip, it becomes easier for us to distort facts about someone or something, just a little, just enough to have a delicious piece of gossip to share.
Someone once coined the phrase, "politics of personal destruction." But our media has become the business of personal destruction. We have drifted into thinking that is okay, even cool.
But one of my New Year's resolutions is to pay attention to what I behold, to make sure it is what I want to become.
Wina Sturgeon