Infotainment

“Infotainment” is a term that has been tossed around for the last few years to describe the overwhelming amount of soft journalism and lack of actual hard news in our media. It also refers to the sense of inaccuracy that we find in the modern news climate. If you want to educate yourself on current events you must weed through a mess of soft journalism–news that is aimed more for its appeal and ratings potential rather than its informative value. America’s news media has begun to fail us, and we are becoming increasingly uninformed.

Limited variety may be part of the problem. Only four companies own almost all the media offered to us: TimeWarner, Disney, News Corporation and Viacom. What are the repercussions of having so few oversee what we see? What if one of the companies under their umbrella happens to commit a crime-would we hear about it? Or would it be easy for them to conceal the story, given their influence?

Also, these corporations are legally liable to make a profit. To do so they need ratings, and ratings are more easily acquired with soft news. As much as we complain about them, Paris Hilton and Anna Nicole Smith head up a lot of reports, casting a shadow upon pertinent information. We are no more informed than we were before we watched them, yet they receive more attention than the Iraq war or local politics.

Advertising is another dilemma with news reporting. Have you ever asked yourself why milk needs to be advertised? “Got milk?” “Well, yeah I do, and so does practically everybody else I know.” Could it be that, coming under fire for health issues, milk companies bought ad space to ensure their image wouldn’t be defamed? Advertising has always been a part of the media, after all. They have to make a buck somehow, and advertising is not the problem as a whole. But how does advertising influence the news? If a company facing public disgrace over their product wishes to hide their misdeeds, can they merely sponsor a news broadcast, thus influencing the angle of an issue or omitting the story altogether? Can they sway media attention in other ways to benefit their goals?

An excellent example of this is the 2003 court ruling in a case between New World Communications of Tampa, a subsidiary of Fox News, and Jane Akre, a former reporter for Fox News. Akre was fired for refusing to report a story involving a station sponsor from a specific angle. The sponsor had threatened to remove their ads and the station folded. Akre was initially awarded $425,000 by a jury, but that the Florida District Court of Appeal, which ruled that news stations have no authorized regulation on what they choose to say, overturned the decision. Even the Federal Communications Commission has little sway over news content.

Going even further, the court ruled that, since most stations are corporations, comprised of individuals with individual rights to free speech, the news stations also have a right to free speech. This means that any news source may say anything it wishes–true or false–and call it fact. Now, we cannot even trust the accuracy of what is reported to us.

Since 2003, media owners have used this ruling in their favor. We have seen a sharp rise in the franchising of the news from all outlets. If a viewer wants a particular interpretation of current events, they can turn to Fox News. For a different interpretation, they can watch CNN and yet another interpretation can be seen on NBC. Dividing viewers into market shares, the facts have been turned into a relative product to be sold. Helping this trend is the popular use of media personalities who analyze information and mold it into a variety of interpretative products.

Like many news viewers, I too enjoy listening to the thoughts and opinions of these personalities and switching between channels, looking for a slant that fits my mood. I admit that I enjoy a certain entertainment value from them. Agreeing with these personalities or not, I understand that they are not “the news” and that, unfortunately, I have to search much further to gather accurate or unbiased information.

So where do we draw the line between advertising and journalistic integrity, personality and interpretation, influence and accuracy, soft and hard news? Perhaps the most basic solution is to become aware of the problem and take the news as it is. We can then go someplace else to get the straight story. If market shares and value do influence the media then perhaps someone will eventually grab the accurate, unbiased market.