It's All Hype

I'm disappointed in today's media. I think modern journalism has sold its soul to the devil. It's not news any more, it's "info-tainment".

Take the well disaster in the Gulf Of Mexico. There is a big well leaking. The rig caught on fire and was completely destroyed. Now they are working below the surface to cap that leaking well. But if you look in the news today, the only picture you'll see is the rig fully engulfed in flames. As if that fire has never been extinguished and that rig is still standing. It's not. It's been out for weeks... but what's the picture you see in the news? Do you see the empty Gulf with the slick spreading? No, that's not sexy enough. The flames and fire are much more evocative, so that's the picture they continue to show.

What happened to truth in the news media? What happened to reporting just the news without some kind of slant on the journalistic view? No one seems capable of reporting just the facts of what's happening in the Gulf. They are all telling the story as if the fate of all of the Gulf wildlife and fishes are threatened. As if the global warming and melting ice shelf will be affected. As if this one spill was the worst possible disaster in all of history.

It's not. It's been leaking for over a month and it's still released less oil than the Exxon Valdiz. Not that comparing one disaster to another is somehow all right, but it's a matter of scale. It's not the worst disaster in all offshore drilling. It is not the worst oil spill either. There have been worse. The shore and fishing in that area will be impacted. But you can't tell the size or scale of the disaster by just watching or reading the news. If you don't go and do your own research, you could be led to believe things that are patently untrue.

Don't get me wrong. It's a disaster. 11 workers lost their lives in the disaster and my heart goes out to their families and friends. That's the disaster. The loss of human life. Someone needs to look into the root causes and determine whether or not there was some negligence or poor maintenance as a causal link.

But the news media is not focused on that. They are hyping the spill and the failed cutoff plans. They are trying to make it out to be the worst spill in history, and it's not.

The news media makes me want to chunk things.

--Sandee Wagner