All Jacko, All the Time
Yesterday, television networks brought
programming to a standstill with a 45-minute vigil
at the Santa Barbara airport. Reporters improvised
on live TV while waiting for Michael Jackson's
private jet to land, cutting to images of planes
landing every time they thought the superstar's jet
might be arriving. In the end, cameras managed to
catch a 5-second glimpse of Jackson in
handcuffs.
This marks a new low for the media's obsession
with capturing live news (non-)events. Broadcasting
car chases is silly enough. To pre-empt programming
with nearly an hour of planes taking off and
landing at a municipal airport is simply laughable.
Can there really be that many people captivated by
the sight of Michael Jackson getting arrested?
Especially when it should have been obvious that he
would be released on bail almost immediately (he
was). I'm thankful I was working, and thus missed
experiencing this media spectacle firsthand.
I have never understood such media voyeurism,
and this episode only confounds me further. Sure,
the same viewers who watch daytime talk shows and
soaps probably find such coverage interesting. But
is it really justifiable for all networks to
cover Jackson being brought to justice? On the
surface, the reason behind it seems simple: the
networks don't want to get scooped by their rivals
for big news stories. But let's examine that logic
closely. Networks make their money by broadcasting
commercials. When the network loses viewers, fewer
eyeballs see the commercials, and the value of
those spots falls; thus, the imperative to keep
viewers. But when the networks all show the same
thing, commercial-free, why the same urgency?
Perhaps the network producers feel that if they
didn't cover such an event, their reputation as a
top-notch news outlet would fall in the minds of
their viewers. But that assumes that the majority
of viewers believe Jackson's plane landing is a
newsworthy event, an assumption that surely must
rest on shaky ground (I hope).
Then again, maybe the type of people watching
television at 11:00 in the morning are indeed the
sort who would find such drivel newsworthy. But my
questions still stand whenever a news network
covers something as inane as a car chase live
during prime time. I have to assume the majority of
people watching TV during the evening couldn't care
less about yet another car chase (again, I
hope). And it seems to me that a network
could easily steal viewers by not
broadcasting the car chase (or the boring airport
vigil), harvesting all of those wayward channel
surfers looking for some real entertainment.
Unfortunately, we're sure to be force-fed live,
round-the-clock coverage of the Jackson trial next
year, just as we were the O.J. trial. All Jacko,
All the Time, All Channels. Maybe it's time to
finally kill my television.
©2003 Michael
Strickland ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED
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