Unfortunately, the mass media zooms in primarily on the elements that it thinks will sell. Another reason who the media, overall is slanted and often extremely biased.
I don't see why a free-market guy like you would find this unfortunate. Media is a business like any other, and they sell a product. If truth doesn't sell, why should they peddle it? It's demand-driven, like anything else: the vast majority of people want exactly what the mass media dish out, which is why they dish it out. If the masses wanted something else, the media would give it to them.
Fortunately, there are enough people out here that want real news to create a niche market for it: in can be had if you look. But it doesn't make much sense, if you believe in free-market principles, to blame the mass media for providing what the public wants to pay for.
I always laughed at the Diana-philes who moaned that the paparazzi killed their beloved princess. If editors hadn't paid big bucks for Diana pictures, the paparazzi wouldn't have bothered, and if all the Diana-philes hadn't rushed to buy anything with her face on the cover, the editors wouldn't have bothered. If anything but bad driving and bad luck killed her, it was the people who were so oddly obsessed with her, who were exactly the ones who moaned about the paparazzi. But it's easier to blame the media.... |
