Beat a story to death coverage

I have always been aware of media criticism. I’ve been presented the research in countless journalism and political science courses. These faceless figures show declining trust and viewer ship. But, until recently I haven’t heard the media criticized to this extent, and most importantly, the criticism is coming from my living room, from my peers.

Recent “hot” news topics have been the Don Imus controversy, Anna Nicole-Smith’s death, and the Virginia Tech massacre. And throughout it all, the war in Iraq is always on the front/side burner. The only similarity in these three topics is that the media can’t get enough. And it’s turning people off.

I recently flipped through the cable news channels and my roommates were begging me to turn it. They are sick of the 24-hour, beat-a-story-to-death approach to news coverage. The next day I heard the same thing at a friend’s house. People are getting tired of being bombarded by a news story. Often it feels like it's impossible to hide from the latest breaking news coverage of frivolous custody battles between worthless celebrities.

Eventually the media will move on, and popular perception is that they will just pick a new issue to over emphasize. I believe the lesson here is to learn, how much is too much. The Virginia Tech massacre warrants more coverage than Don Imus’ comments, and Don Imus deserved more coverage than Anna Nicole-Smith, but in every case there is a line that should not be crossed.

The war in Iraq is different. It has lasted over three years now and while the approval of the war is declining, I don’t believe we know enough about what is really going on there. I don’t want shock jock coverage of the war in Iraq. I don’t want bloody headlines. The saddest aspect of the war in Iraq is that there are good things going on there. We just don’t hear about it. I realize there are nearly daily bombings and instability. It should be covered, but where is the diversity in coverage?

Iraq is a different story.

I see the same white faces covering the war. I want to see how Al-Jazeera covers the war. I want to see all aspects of Iraq and we simply don’t get it here. It is easy to fall into the rut of what we think is best, or worse, what we think the people want to see. The only headlines I see are the number dead and latest bombing. I don’t know what is going on with the schools, sports, entertainment, or business in Iraq. Do these things exist in Iraq? Numbers just become statistics and the distance between the U.S. and Iraq seems to increase. People need to care. And the current pace of coverage is making people distance themselves from the media.

The reality is that the media can never get it 100% right. And competition between the media only complicates coverage. It’s about money and ratings, not quality coverage. It’s expensive and dangerous to send correspondents around the world. Iraq is dangerous and it’s hard to find the progress when civilians and soldiers are dying. But the public deserves better. We should see how Iraqis, Europeans, Russians, South Africans, etc. feel about the war too. We live in a global society.

I'm beginning to think that we have too many news channels, and not enough news.