Before switching media scandals, it's also worth noting that while the phone hacking was perpetrated by a media outlet, the scandal would never have come to light if it wasn't for the dogged efforts of another media outlet, The Guardian, which has made such a strong commitment to its digital future. With the police, politicians, and prosecutors apparently too bound up in their clubby, toxic ecosystem, The Guardian, led by reporters Nick Davies and Amelia Hill, diligently stuck with this story for years and brought the truth to light.
In the case of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, there were plenty of sordid details and breathless accounts for the media to feast on but, in this instance, the media frenzy actually took a back seat to the frenzy of the prosecutors. According to the New York Times, the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, fearing that DSK would flee, pushed aggressively for a quick indictment. The speed of the prosecution added fuel to the media coverage.
But even without it, the story had plenty of elements that warranted national coverage -- the head of the IMF, a leading candidate for the presidency of France, being accused of rape. There were, of course, examples of sensationalist media over-reach, such as the story in the New York Post accusing the alleged victim of being a prostitute -- for which the paper is now being sued.
And a French outlet -- not an American one -- just reported that DSK went on, as the Daily Telegraph puts it, a "sex binge" to "let off steam" before the French election. I guess he's never heard of jogging. Or hotel porn.
The Casey Anthony trial, on the other hand, was the apotheosis of media sensationalism -- a classic example of the press whipping itself into a lather. As Poynter's Julie Moos notes, the week of the verdict, Anthony was the top media story, surpassing President Obama, the debt crisis, the death of Betty Ford, the NOTW shutdown, and everything else.
Yes, a sensation-filled murder trial like Anthony's is always going to get a certain amount of coverage (see OJ, Robert Blake, Phil Spector, the Menendez brothers, etc, etc). But this one hit Balloon Boy proportions. And the excuse is always: hey, we're just giving the public what it wants. But, as the Columbia Journalism Review's Alysia Santo asks, "All this outrage leaves the nagging question: Which came first, the public interest in the trial, or the 24/7 news coverage?"
And when a story consumes as much media oxygen as this one, it's fair to wonder: what's the opportunity cost? What's not being covered as a result? In the all-too-predictable post-mortems posing the rhetorical question, "did the media overdo it?", we seldom ask, "what are the stories on which the media might be under-doing it?" We know what they overplayed; what did they underplay?
Inevitably, the media will claim that we are drawn to stories like the Anthony trial because of "the human element." But, in fact, pretty much any story that involves humans can have a human element. And, with a just little more work, one can find plenty of "human elements" in the lives of the over 25 million unemployed or underemployed Americans.
How great would it be if all the news anchors and pundits who, in the last month have emoted about their legitimate concern for mistreated children like Caylee Anthony, gave even a fraction of the emotion -- and air time -- to the 15 million children in America who are currently living in poverty? We were all moved and horrified by the death of Caylee. By telling the stories of some of those 15 million, this capacity for empathy that we're all so clearly capable of could move us to action and save an awful lot of children from lives of quiet -- and not so quiet -- desperation.
Perhaps with the rise of social media, and the blurring of the distinctions between media producers and media consumers, those millions of human stories, so often lost in the cacophony of scandals -- some worthy of page one coverage, some not -- will get their time in the spotlight.
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