Page 59 - Mass Media, Mass Propoganda Examining American News in the War on Terror

All the News That's Fit to Omit 49

to reduce operating and reporting costs considerably by cutting down on expen-
sive investigative journalism. While this practice may be beneficial from cost-
analysis perspective, it leads to an extreme imbalance in reporting in favor of
administration claims.

Excessive Fluff
Fluff stories are those that have little to no significance from the perspective of
educating the public on important domestic and global issues. Sometimes re-
ferred to as "junk food new~,'*~ fluff is advantageous from a marketing and
profit perspective because it reduces reliance on investigative journalism. But
fluff is detrimental to professional reporting in the sense that it allows television
viewers to technically "follow the news" without learning much of significance
about national and international affairs. Emphasis on junk food stories can direct
attention away from expectations that news outlets pursue critical, hard-hitting
stories related to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the American "pacifi-
cation" campaign conducted against Iraq's resistance groups.
The stations most reliant on fluff news are the twenty-four hour news net-
works such as MSABC, CNN, and Fox News, as they increasingly promote
"news" stories to fill up their large time slots, despite the fact that they have
little importance in the grand scheme of more relevant political, economic, and
social issues affecting Americans. Gary Kamiya of Salon reprimanded the
twenty-four hour networks for peddling fluff news at the expense of more rele-
vant reporting-for relying on "lurid, sexually charged murder cases and shark
attacks" as not only "the most important stories, but often "the only stories" that
are covered. "The contrast between Fox's resolute avoidance of showing bloody
images from the war in Iraq and its nearly pornographic immersion in shark
bites and unsolved murders," in the summer of 2005, was "glaring. Only death
or bloodshed with high entertainment value gets on FOX."^^ Similarly, Robert
McChesney critiques television networks for concentrating "upon stories that
are inexpensive and easy to cover, like lifestyle pieces, court cases, plane
crashes, crime stories, and shoot OU~S.'~
Some fluff stories ran over the last few years include: the Kobe Bryant sex-
ual assault trial; Martha Stewart's trial, conviction, sentencing, and release;
Britney Spear's multiple marriages; Brad Pitt and Jennifer Anniston's divorce;
Bennifer: the breakup of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez; the continuing adven-
tures of the Bush twins; the Laci Peterson murder trial and Scott Peterson's con-
viction and sentencing; the search for the missing jogger, Lori Hacking; the
story of Private Jessica Lynch; Michael Jackson's child molestation trial; the
Runaway Bride; the Robert Blake murder trial; and the baseball steroids scandal,
to name just a few. That the majority of television news channels spent more
time covering the Michael Jackson child molestation trial and Scott Peterson
murder trial than covering the question of whether the Bush administration's
manipulated pre-war intelligence about Iraqi WMD is cause for concern when