“Jamie Lynn Spears, the 16 year-old sister of Britney Spears has confirmed that she is 12-weeks pregnant…” This headline has appeared in almost every major media outlet. The problem is that nobody seems to think this story is unnecessary to report. It disgusts me that the U.S. public in the modern-era is more intrigued by a “pop star” than the status of the inner-city communities in Baltimore, Maryland. Today’s media is bent on reporting what the public deems interesting such as lifestyle, celebrity gossip, and entertainment in general. But many are losing sight in reporting “real” unbiased news that does not focus on Hollywood’s celebrity drama. In my opinion, the drunken public display of lavish Hollywood stars on television is impertinent to the average American. The fact that professional journalists can fill time on the air or space in newspapers to report on the un-classy and crass escapades of Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan, and Britney Spears is beyond me. Young girls view these celebrities as role models yet everyday their drunk driving, cocaine abuse, jail and pregnancy stories are ubiquitous in the media. I understand that the front page of a newspaper or headline news of a television show that displays a celebrity may spark curiosity for a viewer but it serves an injustice to put these stories ahead of a story about health-care for seniors or a robbery that took the lives of three innocent citizens. The sad part of today’s news is that nobody is concerned with the actual story and the “real news” becomes just a fleeting statistic for the average American.
The genocide in Darfur which has taken hundreds of thousands of lives in the past few years amounts to only 1.25% of coverage by all international media outlets. To put it into perspective, Michael Jackson’s child molestation case, Tom Cruise’s engagement to Katie Holmes, and Martha Stewart’s prison sentencing on insider trading charges received almost 70 times more media coverage than the crisis in Darfur.
As a marketing major, repetition can permeate the consumers’ minds. If television networks, newspapers, and other media outlets do not cover significant stories that are affecting our lives (whether we know it or not), the public is being robbed of information. That is the responsibility of the media – to report the news whether it is local, national, or international. If important stories such as the status of inner-city schools in America to international stories like Darfur are not reported, then they don’t exist in the individual’s mind. As a result there is no sense of urgency or demand for people such as leaders with power to come to any solution. The media is our eyes to the world that we are not able to see in person. Learning about which celebrity is pregnant is not going to change this world at all…
