History Un-Learned
Some of us like to read/watch/listen to the news. Interesting? Certainly. Entertainment? Hardly. Good journalism is the backbone of a strong society, for it forms the primary first draft of history, and it informs the people of choices that are to be made, choices that have been made, and the results and after effects of those same choices.
So why is it that Paris Hilton is the biggest piece of news going on right now? Can anybody explain to me how that could possibly be more important than:
- Russian and American political posturing and an arms race that threatens to ignite Cold War II?
- A continuing military operation that is eerily reminiscent of a little thing I like to refer to as the Vietnam War?
- The News Corp/Yahoo/Google stirring controversy by trying to buy the Dow Industrials and its associated Wall Street Journal?
There’s no possible way that Paris or any entertainment professional in the world deserves more headline attention that any one of these three stories. And yet. And yet it’s there. As sick as it is, that is the state of journalism today. A pandering to the masses, coddling demographics with panem et circenses.
… iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli uendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, panem et circenses. …
… Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions - everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses…
Juvenal, Satire 10.77-81
It is enough to make a person want to vomit.