Jumping (on) the shark

IglooDame

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This story got the first few minutes of ABC News' nightly national news broadacast last night (Sunday).

Now, nevermind the fact that there are a few dozen shark attacks per year in the US, and a handful of them are actually fatal, whereas a few hundred people per year drown in US ocean waters with no help whatsoever from sharks.

You might recall (if you're in the US) that the media went crazy in mid-2001 with the "Summer of the Shark".

So, my question is, what responsibility does the news media have for assessing and informing about levels of risk, versus sensationalist fear-mongering? Where's your line between spending half every broadcast on heart disease and cancer, and spending a lot more than 4.4% of the news on deadly accidents (a third of that being traffic accidents, and then in order falls, choking, drowning, and fires) and 0.7% of the news on homicides? Is the US media perpetuating the "OMG terrorists are trying to blow up an airplane" TSA warnings that result in more airport security procedures/theater?
 
Those sharks would be far more dangerous if a tornado were to fling them into suburban areas.

The news media seems mostly concerned with sensationalism and selling ad space, and covering the rare shark attack fulfills the first role. Informing the public is an obsolete civic role.
 
So, my question is, what responsibility does the news media have for assessing and informing about levels of risk, versus sensationalist fear-mongering?

Your news media revolves around sensationalist fear-mongering, it seems. Actually, maybe even most news media in the west? It's just that "news entertainment" style news reporting is very popular in America, and that's often just a case of a bunch of doofuses sitting behind a desk screaming at the viewer that the sharks are killing the bees and that we're all going to die.

I feel like your question would make more sense in the presence of actual reporters doing actual journalist-type work and reporting it to us on the news. But that doesn't really happen anymore.
 
Your news media revolves around sensationalist fear-mongering, it seems. Actually, maybe even most news media in the west?
News media has never been about civic service. Objectivity was invented as a marketing strategy.
 
I never put a toe in the sea without thinking I really don't want my leg being bitten off by a shark.

It's not just the risk that's important, but the hazard (should the feared event happen) as well.

I can't see anything wrong with having an atavistic fear of sharks. Nasty ugly things as they are.
 
News media has never been about civic service. Objectivity was invented as a marketing strategy.

Yet so many news stations in other countries seem to get it (a lot more) right than the news entertainment clowns in the U.S. ever do.

This is not a criticism of the U.S., just a criticism of their news media outlets, or whatever you want to call them.
 
Yeah, I get that. I'm not even defending those stations, at all. I'm just saying we have a system that incidentally gets things right, and incidentally gets things right more often in some places or other.

I'm not surprised it's failed so badly in the US, I'm just surprised it hasn't failed worse here or elsewhere, and at one point wasn't that bad in the US.
 
If it bleeds, it leads. Textbook case.
 
Well part of the problem is people watch this junk. Broadcasters are not going to take many chances on "hard" journalism if they know they can get by with the daily dose of tragedies instead.

I think that's why you tend to have more in depth stuff on public media.
 
A 7-foot shark isn't any real danger to any adult. The only reason it attacked in the first place was because it was hooked. That makes the guy who was swimming near where people were fishing an idiot, or vice versa. It was such a superficial wound the he thought it might be a cramp until he saw the blood.

The press can't very well ignore shark attacks. It is news. But they should to a far better job of putting it in perspective than they do. But even mentioning such a minor incident as this at the national level is ludicrous.

Does all this lead to even more nonsensical demands from the TSA? Of course. The latest one is that everybody has to now turn on their cell phones because the French think there will be another commercial jet incident. Welcome to even longer lines.
 
Summer of the shark, March of the missing plane, they always find something trivial to harp on.

A 7-foot shark isn't any real danger to any adult. The only reason it attacked in the first place was because it was hooked. That makes the guy who was swimming near where people were fishing an idiot. It was such a superficial wound the he thought it might be a cramp until he saw the blood.

No, it makes the fisherman idiots for illegally shark fishing on one of the country's most popular beaches.
 
Yeah. I thought it might be the other way around so I amended my comment. But the swimmer should have still known better than to swim where someone was fishing.

What is ironic though is that the local authorities aren't even honest about that real danger. They post "strong current, no swimming" signs around the state-owned fishing piers to discourage swimmers, instead of telling them their odds of being bitten are much higher. They don't want to scare the tourists.
 
Well part of the problem is people watch this junk. Broadcasters are not going to take many chances on "hard" journalism if they know they can get by with the daily dose of tragedies instead.

I think that's why you tend to have more in depth stuff on public media.

Yeah, it's because most news stations are owned by people who are just after money. I mean, that's what capitalism is sort of supposed to be about, I guess, so from that perspective it makes sense.

But you're right, they wouldn't make more money if they gave us better news stations.. They make more money now, so they're going to stick to their current methods, because they work.. they work at bringing in money, but not so much at delivering the news in a good way to us.

Either way though, everything in the news in sensationalized these days.. Everything's blown up, they get more viewers and readers that way.
 
Yeah, it's because most news stations are owned by people who are just after money. I mean, that's what capitalism is sort of supposed to be about, I guess, so from that perspective it makes sense.

But you're right, they wouldn't make more money if they gave us better news stations.. They make more money now, so they're going to stick to their current methods, because they work.. they work at bringing it money, but not so much at delivering the news in a good way to us.

Either way though, everything in the news in sensationalized these days.. Everything's blown up, they get more viewers and readers that way.

I think one notable exception is Al Jazeera, which is a for profit broadcast network that, at least in this market, intentionally markets itself as the counter-point to the Fox News/CNN race to the bottom. The jury is out on whether they will be successful, but they are one of the few large for profit broadcasters out there that actually still does real news.

But other than them, to me the only broadcasters who have reputable live television news in the US market are PBS and BBC (some cable and satellite providers have BBC news here). Maaaaybe 60 Minutes... sometimes.

When you get into radio and print it gets a little different, since those mediums are more conducive to more in depth reporting.
 
Yeah, that's why I prefer to read about a significant enough event through multiple sources. There will be sensationalism all around, so if you really want the truth, you've got to read around. If ou're only going to stick to 1 news source, you're never going to know what's going on.. especially if you stick to any of the "news entertainment" type stations. They're not in the business of reading the news, they're in the business of making money.

The CBC isn't bad either, but I doubt you get that down there.. but maybe you do?
 
News media didn't used to be this bad. Before the networks turned their news departments into "profit centers", there used to be far less sensationalism and far more truly investigative reporting. But once they were open to being bought and thereby controlled by advertisers, corporate America stepped right in and made them into what they are today.

I'm seeing the face of God.


Link to video.
 
If it bleeds, it leads. Textbook case.



This.

The news media in the US is primarily characterized as lazy, cheap, and sensationalist. Nearly all of the news programs are owned by a handful of massive entertainment companies. Their news operations are intended to make money, not inform, except as necessary.
 
I think one notable exception is Al Jazeera, which is a for profit broadcast network that, at least in this market, intentionally markets itself as the counter-point to the Fox News/CNN race to the bottom. The jury is out on whether they will be successful, but they are one of the few large for profit broadcasters out there that actually still does real news.
That is also ironically what got them into so much trouble in Egypt. Why three of their staff were convicted of "terrorist acts".
 
People still watch the nightly news?
 
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