Inside The Mind of The Media
Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time once again for a commercial from our specious sponsors at “American Media Whores”:
“Terrorists… Mass murderers… Tired of feeling isolated? Sick of being unknown? Not wanting to commit that massacre for fear no one will know? Well your dreams of martyrdom have finally been answered. COMMIT YOUR CRIME IN AMERICA, where American Media Whores promise you’ll NEVER be forgotten. They’ll broadcast your every move. For weeks. Months. Even years. Your universal martyrdom will exceed your wildest dreams!”
No joke…
Virginia Tech University. Bluffton University. Duke University. Rutgers University. Columbine High. Visual suffering and televised tears. Sensational. Salacious. Dramatic. Delights for pernicious predators like self-serving media whores.
American media are parasites. Tragedy and mayhem are their hosts. They prey on sorrow, incite fear, and ignite rage. They even start wars. They anoint ‘the evil’, and savage ‘the good.’ They swift-boat honor and uplift lies. They make idols of murderers and glorify their crimes. They cater to sorrow-seekers and thrill-mongers. They encourage voyeurs. They create addicts who worship the offender and worship the offense.
Media sequester what they choose and feature what they want. They magnify what should be ignored and ignore what should be known. Truth is inconsequential.
Ratings are what rule. And ratings set the rules:
Create “breaking news.” Avoid the unappealing, like war, the poor, and the unattractive. Focus on wealth, beautiful women and handsome men. Stories of adorable Anglo children are sure to sell. Rehearse phrases like “tragedy of unimaginable proportions,” “overwhelming pain and suffering” and “sadly no one survived.” Pay little mind to the “good stuff.”
American media suck blood from stone. And life from death. They are our principal source of deception. They gave us George W. Bush and “shock and awe.” As Danny Schechter would say, they are “weapons of mass deception,” http://www.wmdthefilm.com/mambo/index.php. They are not Democracy’s protectors. They are corporate America’s spawn.
Look at the bulk of MSNBC’s lineup. Hours and hours of “Lock Up:” life behind prisons’ walls. That’s prisons with an “s.” A nation-wide tour of America’s penitentiaries. The deconstruction of incarceration as a recognizable way of life. The legitimization of the prison industrial complex.
Then more hours devoted to deviant crimes and exploring the minds of criminals. MSNBC isn’t a news stop. It’s a crime stop.
On April 15th, one day BEFORE the mayhem at Virginia Tech, I wrote an article titled “Conflated Tragedies: Bluffton U., Duke U. and Iraq, Too,” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-milazzo/conflated-tragedies-bluf_b_45911.html) which considered the massive media coverage of University tragedies over the minimal coverage of our military at war. It recalled the Bluffton University bus crash that filled America’s airwaves for many a night. And the three Duke LaCrosse players who spent a full year in the media light.
Now the media barrage centers on the campus of Virginia Tech. Thirty-three dead. We “know” the victims. And the perpetrator. We recall their faces, their names, and their lives. They suffered horrific unnecessary deaths, played out again and again on TV. The media milking the mayhem for all that it’s worth and setting the bait for more.
Virginia Tech, now five days post-massacre, remains inundated by press. Satellites are everywhere. Victims and their families are paraded before cameras. Sympathetic characters exploited for profit. A gruesome teleplay with all the elements of high drama:
An idyllic community shattered by violence. Thirty-three young people horribly slain. Lives ended and shattered forever.
And the villain. OH, THE VILLAIN!
His frightening poses. His salacious wardrobe and props. His single-spaced ramble sexed-up to a “manifesto.” Recorded direct to the camera, then aired again and again. The media will keep him living long beyond his death. To inspire more villains… to create more horrors… to engage more viewers… to drive ratings UP!
Three days ago, Larry Hincker, Virginia Tech’s Associate Vice President of University Relationships, called a press conference to assuage the press. Vice-President Hincker offered the following:
“… There’s not a whole lot of information left at this point to disseminate. The questions and answers, we’re going over the same points again and again and again… How I can continue to get your requests for information and your request for interviews? I don’t know what the number is here. It’s something like 300 to 350 journalists. I couldn’t do an interview an hour and get that done in several weeks. From my University’s standpoint, we have got to move forward. As you can imagine, we cannot let this horror define Virginia Tech. We’re gonna do whatever we can to get this place on its feet again…”
Caught off guard by Hincker’s remarks, drama-queen Wolf Blitzer put the onus on the INTERNATIONAL press, absolving CNN from being over-zealous. Blitzer said:
“Clearly a very emotional moment for Larry Hincker… This has been an extraordinary, extraordinary effort on the part of authorities and officials at Virginia Tech to deal with literally hundreds of journalists who have descended on that campus. Not only from the United States but from around the world. I haven’t seen that many satellites, television satellite trucks for example, since I covered the Oklahoma City bombing… It’s a huge, huge story, obviously taking its toll on everyone, including the officials at the University at Virginia Tech…
Carol Costello is watching all of this for us. I see some of those satellite trucks behind you right now. Carol, you and I have covered a lot of stories over the years and the pressure on the campus from the INTERNATIONAL NEWS MEDIA has been intense…”
The blame isn’t with the INTERNATIONAL PRESS! CNN alone has placed Wolf Blitzer, John King, Anderson Cooper, Carol Costello, Paula Zahn, Elizabeth Cohn and Soledad O’Brien directly on the Virginia Tech scene. CNN is in no way absolved from the “blitz.”
Nor is it absolved from inciting danger:
Last night, on the heels of Wolf Blitzer’s baiting-for-a-copy-cat-show, Paula Zahn proposed an egregious reckless incendiary slant. She posited that Korean Americans at Virginia Tech and across the nation should fear reprisals because the killer was ‘one of their own.’
Paula you ignorant ass! How many hooks can you bait? How much carnage do you want? You and CNN, NBC, MSNBC, Time Warner, Fox and G.E.? Could you be any more despicable??? I think not.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, it’s again time for our repugnant “milking and baiting” commercial from our sponsors at American Media Whores:
“Terrorists… Mass murderers… Tired of feeling isolated? Sick of being unknown? Not wanting to commit that massacre for fear no one will know? Well your dreams of martyrdom have finally been answered. COMMIT YOUR CRIME IN AMERICA, where American Media Whores promise you’ll NEVER be forgotten. They’ll broadcast your every move. For weeks. Months. Even years. Your universal martyrdom will exceed your wildest dreams!”
Linda Milazzo can be reached at pimbalina@mac.com
Linda Milazzo is a Los Angeles based writer, educator and activist. Her writing has appeared in numerous newspapers, magazines and domestic and international journals. She’s a member of CodePink Women For Peace and Progressive Democrats of America. Over the past four decades Linda has divided her time between the entertainment industry, community projects and education.
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