We’ve become a nation of voyeurs. Between post-your-own video sites like YouTube, the increasingly tabloid-like slant that so-called reputable news agencies have adopted, and “reality” television, it seems like our sense of propriety – and our personal boundaries – are eroding at an alarming rate.
I bring to your attention Exhibit A: Michael Jackson’s death. The ensuing feeding frenzy of exposés, interviews with medical experts who are basically speculating aloud as to what actually happened, not to mention the three-ring-circus that passed for a funeral service, took what was a very sad occurrence and made it into entertainment. The poor man is dead. Let him rest in peace!
And for Exhibit B I submit to you the Gosselins. Thanks to their Jon and Kate Plus Eight reality show, all of America basically got a ringside seat to the dissolution of a family. Let me repeat that: a family fell apart, right before our eyes. Eight children are having to deal not only with their parents’ separation and divorce, but must now also endure seeing their parents’ faces splashed across supermarket tabloids.
I recently stumbled across one of those gossipy celebrity rags that pretty much blamed the Gosselins themselves for being paparazzi fodder – as if the members of the media were somehow being forced to stake these people out, dig for whatever dirt there might be, then trumpet it to the general public.
What is wrong with us as a society, that we think it’s appropriate to watch as situations like this grow more and more unpleasant? When we don’t stop to consider that human beings’ lives are involved here? These newshounds and gossip-mongers aren’t operating in a vacuum. Innocent bystanders are getting caught in the crossfire, apparently written off as acceptable collateral damage so long as these stories bring in viewers.
It’s pretty easy to point fingers at the media and decry their crass behavior, but odds are they’d focus on other things – perhaps even reporting actual news – if the public didn’t keep tuning in day after day to see the next chapter of these sordid sagas unfold. The media focuses on stories that attract viewers. The media won’t stop until we stop tuning in.
Something tells me that won’t be happening anytime soon.
