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Opinion

It's time to put the watchdog to sleep 
 
Jim McCormick
Opinion Columnist

Every pet owner must face the day when his or her beloved animal companion dies. Usually, though, animal deaths are negotiated, typically through euthanasia. Today, the world has a pet that is in such ailing condition that the only humane thing to do is put it to sleep: the traditional news media. Not only has it ceased to be a source of news and information, it has also become simply an extension of the advertisements that fund this communication medium.

One only needs to look at the last week for proof of the illness from which the traditional news media suffers. More news coverage was given to a former stripper's death and an astronaut's insane antics than to anything else. 

"But it was a slow news week," some might say. However, this country is involved in two wars, a presidential campaign is starting a good nine months before it probably should and a deal was reached with North Korea about its nuclear weapons programs.

What's more, President Bush, in a last-ditch effort to prove to everyone that he isn't a miserable failure, is probably trying to set up a war against yet a third country.

This isn't even mentioning the activities in Congress, where elected officials are working almost unnoticed by the media, unless they're throwing their name into the ring to run for the presidency.

The stories covered by the traditional media are, by and large, irrelevant.

Cable news, once a wellspring of information, has devolved into a cesspool of uninformed punditry, childish name-calling and cheap scare tactics used to keep viewers tuned in and advertisers paying. It almost seems like a competition to see who can be louder, more offensive and less informed than Stephen Colbert and keep a straight face doing it.

Of course, the problem isn't limited to cable news. The network news has increasingly become consumed by special reports, soft news and fear-mongering pieces on what foods in your refrigerator can kill you (here's a hint: all of them). 

No longer does one hear anything of relevance on how badly American troops are being beaten in Iraq, not even mentioning the absolutely horrific death toll among Iraqi civilians, whose bodies are piling up faster than those from the Black Death, nor do they give much information about what's going on in Washington, unless there's some sex scandal. 

In print, columnists frequently emulate the talking heads on television obviously thinking that what works to get ratings on television might also work to bring in readership. News reporters frequently make it apparent that they forgot to ask important questions when conducting their interviews. Mostly, the headlines read along the same lines as the stories seen on the previous day's cable news, whether it was truly important or not.

Of course, the worst cases of bad journalism are in industry journalism. Here, the reporters are frequently not above copying and pasting text from press releases, no matter how badly written. In fact, the press release has become less of a notice that a company or group has done something that might be newsworthy and more of a blatant advertisement for some product. Instead of just telling readers that some company has invented a drug that cures cancer in relatively plain language, the press release now contains more market-speak and meaningless buzzwords than anything else.

News distribution needs serious rethinking. A part of the equation is obviously citizen journalism, which is beginning to take off thanks to the relative ease of setting up a Web log. However, it is not enough. There needs to be more independent news sources. Generally, some competition is good for product quality. 

People also need to take more time to actually obtain information. Few people are truly so busy as to be unable to fully understand the events in the world -- an understanding that cannot be acquired through a 30-second sound bite. 

And finally, media outlets that spout nonsense just need to be turned off.

McCormick, a computer science post-baccalaureate student, 
can be reached via dccampus@mail.uh.edu