The choices the media takes nowadays in which stories they deem important and interesting is getting close to an all-time low.
I know that Justin Bieber giving fellow teen superstar Selena Gomez a ring now dubbed the “J-Ring” is newsworthy for a select audience of pre-teens but not on newspowerhouse CNN.
The J. Biebs story was higher up on CNN’s “Latest News” section than the mass breakout of 30 prisoners in Mexico.
Yes, that means my eyes first glanced upon Justin Bieber before the mass breakout in Mexico. Some people will argue that the “J-Ring” appeals to more people than a story such as the Mexico inmate breakout.
This is just one of the many examples that I have been noticing more and more in the media lately. Some of the stories that take prevalence over other more important are absolutely ridiculous.
Last year, news broke that minor league baseball catcher Wilson Ramos had been kidnapped and abducted in his home country of Venezuela. ESPN covered the story on their website, but the story was the last item shown under the headlines section of the page.
Other notable headlines from that day included “Peyton Manning starts rehabilitation” and “Allen Iverson scores 15 in first game in Turkey.”
You cannot tell me that Peyton Manning running around in an arena is more newsworthy than a professional baseball catcher being abducted in his home country. That is just plain foolish.
Tuesday morning, CNN did something right in terms of the breaking news story regarding Greece’s $170 billion bailout.
But then they turned right around and screwed everything up.
Don’t get me wrong here, I am an avid sports and NBA fan. I agree that a 23-year-old Harvard economics graduate bursting on the NBA scene in its biggest market, New York City, is a great story.
The fact that Jeremy Lin is an Asian-American Harvard grad is also a great story in a league where players are rarely Asian-American, let alone Havard grads.
However, the media is beating this story into the ground. There is only so much content that you can stuff into the same exact stories every day for two weeks.
Now getting back to my original point here, the thing that frustrates me the most about the Jeremy Lin saga is the fact that it took precedence over the Greece bailout.
The truth of the matter is, the story that took precedence over the Greece bailout wasn’t even about Lin himself.
The story was about a man that has an obscure blog saying that he himself predicted that Jeremy Lin would be a star in the NBA.
The media — especially CNN in this case — are grasping at straws.
When a reader opened the page early Tuesday morning, they would see a picture of Jeremy Lin across the middle of the website. The full story of the Greece bailout could be found a ways down the site on the left hand side.
Next time you go to a credible news site for your early morning news or before-you-go-to-bed news, take a look at what stories are in the most important spots on your news feed. You might be surprised at what you see.
The media influences what the general public reads and what the public thinks is important, and then in turn what the general public converses about.
Ask yourself, is what you are reading important in the long run — at all?
