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Media Faces
Nov. 21st, 2007 03:13 pmI just finished the Autobiography I Feel good by James Brown. Yes, the man had one hell of an ego, but he also had some interesting insight into the music industry, media, and the world we live in from the viewpoint of someone born absolutely destitute and who found himself on top, then fallen, then back on top again and again.
One of the interesting points in the book was his contact with lots of people who are well known names in the media. He had personal contact with every president from Johnson to Clinton, was a close personal friend of Hubert Humphries and Govenor Wallace, and also knew people like Elvis, Little Richard, BB. King, Aretha Franklin, Bob Hope, Sammy Davis Jr, Frank Sinatra, and a host of others. One of the things he said I found very interesting, and it made me think. He contends that the media doesn't portray people very well, and that our perceptions of the famous people the media comments on are severely skewed. This hit home even more now than it normally would for me, since we're about to go hurtling down into the abyss known as an election year, where we get all kinds of "information" about the various people who have put their names out there to be beaten to a pulp by the public's need to know and desire for something to pay attention to.
Mr. Brown specifically commented on politicians, saying that they're always better people than the media makes them out to be, and reading (well, listening) to his words about the ones he knew has made me once again want to reach for the salt shaker when the topic of what we know about these people comes to light.
Think about it -- the media has a few scant seconds in each sound byte to tell us something. Is that ever going to be enough to get the measure of someone's character, motivations, reasons, and personality? Can we ever judge someone on what the media considers "newsworthy?" After all, most people have seen the 2005 mug shot of James Brown after he was arrested for some charges that no one was ever quite sure of, mostly stemming from a fight he had with his 4th wife. No one has seen pictures of the two of them walking hand in hand happily out of the court house after the case was resolved, because that wasn't newsworthy. We only get the big stories, most of them bad things, not the stories of good stuff. Don Henley said similar things in his song Dirty Laundry.
Most people who know me know I have little use for the news channels. I believe much of what they report isn't news, it's gossip to most people. And I tend to have little respect for what most people consider being "informed." Every time someone tells me that they think they're informed, I ask them who their neighbors are, who their local J.P. is, what precinct they live in, who they call for a busted water main out in front of their house, who their state and local and national congress folk are or other government officials, and where their post office is that delivers to their house. (It's not always the closest one) I could care less about some guy killing his wife in California. That's not going to impact my life at all, and isn't relevent to my life. And this book has given me another reason why I've never been comfortable with the news that gets reported.
One of the interesting points in the book was his contact with lots of people who are well known names in the media. He had personal contact with every president from Johnson to Clinton, was a close personal friend of Hubert Humphries and Govenor Wallace, and also knew people like Elvis, Little Richard, BB. King, Aretha Franklin, Bob Hope, Sammy Davis Jr, Frank Sinatra, and a host of others. One of the things he said I found very interesting, and it made me think. He contends that the media doesn't portray people very well, and that our perceptions of the famous people the media comments on are severely skewed. This hit home even more now than it normally would for me, since we're about to go hurtling down into the abyss known as an election year, where we get all kinds of "information" about the various people who have put their names out there to be beaten to a pulp by the public's need to know and desire for something to pay attention to.
Mr. Brown specifically commented on politicians, saying that they're always better people than the media makes them out to be, and reading (well, listening) to his words about the ones he knew has made me once again want to reach for the salt shaker when the topic of what we know about these people comes to light.
Think about it -- the media has a few scant seconds in each sound byte to tell us something. Is that ever going to be enough to get the measure of someone's character, motivations, reasons, and personality? Can we ever judge someone on what the media considers "newsworthy?" After all, most people have seen the 2005 mug shot of James Brown after he was arrested for some charges that no one was ever quite sure of, mostly stemming from a fight he had with his 4th wife. No one has seen pictures of the two of them walking hand in hand happily out of the court house after the case was resolved, because that wasn't newsworthy. We only get the big stories, most of them bad things, not the stories of good stuff. Don Henley said similar things in his song Dirty Laundry.
Most people who know me know I have little use for the news channels. I believe much of what they report isn't news, it's gossip to most people. And I tend to have little respect for what most people consider being "informed." Every time someone tells me that they think they're informed, I ask them who their neighbors are, who their local J.P. is, what precinct they live in, who they call for a busted water main out in front of their house, who their state and local and national congress folk are or other government officials, and where their post office is that delivers to their house. (It's not always the closest one) I could care less about some guy killing his wife in California. That's not going to impact my life at all, and isn't relevent to my life. And this book has given me another reason why I've never been comfortable with the news that gets reported.
