Amy Winehouse died. Apparently she went off the rails again. I'm a little bummed that she's a member of the 27 club, mostly because everyone neglects to mention Jeremy Michael Ward in that list. Anyway, advocacy of Satan:
I understand it's really depressing to see news of a drunk dying knock a legitimate tragedy like the one happening in Norway off page one, but there are a lot of reasons for why this happened, and part of the blame falls on the people bitching about it. A quick breakdown from a 2nd year Journalism student:
1) News only sells if it's local. I know this is becoming a tad obsolete in the age of the internet, but for the most part, people's interest in news is almost directly related to its proximity to them. Amy Winehouse is a pop singer from an English speaking country who got some pretty decent airplay on our radios and sold albums and concerts pretty steadily over here. Norway is at the other end of the earth. As harsh as it is, when you don't filter your news yourself, you get drip fed the stuff that's going to play on your mind more. For the person with only a fleeting interest in global events, stories sell more and links get more hits when the news is local, and sadly, most people only have a passing interest in the world they live in. Better education and the ease in which we can find news ourselves may buck the trend, but old media is dying a stubborn death.
2) The suspect they have in Norway was on our side. And by "our" I of course mean the owners, editors and investors in news outlets. The money guys who control what we hear. If he was a Muslim extremist, this shit would be plastered everywhere, you couldn't move for hearing about it. Fact is, he's a white, conservative Christian. Rupert Murdoch (as if he doesn't have enough problems heh heh heh) and all those of his ilk are, at present, tugging their collars and shooting each other worried looks. Religious, right wing conservatism has suffered a lot of PR hits recently, and this one is a really big one. A nation of generally calm, secular, left leaning liberals suffering a tragedy at the hands of a conservative whackjob? Makes it really difficult to play the "traditional values" or "God is love" cards. Needless to say, this flies directly in the face of both the political dichotomy and the us vs. them mentality vis the War on Terror that news organisations are trying to feed, and so it'll get slowly, but surely, phased out of our collective discourse.
3) People are talking about Winehouse. Even if you're bitching about it, you're still talking about it. Even if you're posting a facebook status (or... a blog post... sigh...) bitching about why Norway isn't getting as much cover as Winehouse, you're still drawing people's attention to the fact that something happened to Amy Winehouse, and if people don't know what that is, they'll look it up. Editors and publishers realise this, and so pushing big news out for vapid news appeals to idiots who want vapid news, and stirs the pot resulting in more interest in both stories, not just the serious one. Of course, there are steps that can be taken to curb the trend...
Stop paying attention to it. For the love of god. I realise it's incredibly frustrating to see stuff like a celebrity news and reality television get more coverage than serious global issues, but don't draw attention to it. Nothing pisses me off more than seeing the industry I'm trying to enter play dumb to sell copies, but with this one final twitch I want to leave it dead. By not drawing any attention to her death, by making it seem like there is no interest, by letting the story go unread and un-linked, you do more to change the face of news reporting than bitching ever could. News organisations don't care about whining, they care about interest and attention, even bad attention.
It's that simple. Let the proper stories flourish while the fluff fades into unheard obscurity. Create an environment where the only news that's marketable is actual news. If this meme gets widespread enough, it is possible that the face of news reporting changes completely and becomes serious again. Maybe we could get news to a place where I'm OK with paying for it? It could happen.
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