It's my impression (subjective, so it could be wrong, but of course I don't think it is) that sports coverage has been increasing on national and local radio and TV news broadcasts. Increasing, I mean, both in saliva-spraying intensity and in the percentage of the average news broadcast consumed by sports nonsense.
I hate sports, and I'll admit right away that, despite my general commitment to a philosophy of living and letting live, if I were king of the world (if only!), watching or discussing sports would be outlawed for anyone old enough to drive. If they wanted to discuss the latest exploits of people who kick or hit or throw balls of various sizes and shapes, adults would be forced to gather in dark, dank, garbage-strewn alleys and talk in murmurs - until the Royal Vice Police swooped in to brutally arrest the perverts and ship them off to reeducation camps.
Be that as it may, sports exist, as they always have and - sigh - probably always will. But why is an ever greater chunk of what is supposed to be broadcast news being devoted to them? Why is it displacing real news, even the fluffy, local stuff? Why are sports statistics referred to as history and the outcomes of games given more weight than major political events?
Ask a Roman emperor. Sports news is our bread and circuses, but without the bread. The aim is to fire the viewers up about something they can feel involved in, to delude them that they can win, albeit vicariously, or if they lose, they can feel hope for next year. That idea isn't new, but the increase in the emphasis on sports is. The news media seem to feel that ever more misdirection is needed. It makes me wonder what they think may be coming, in this empire of ours. Or perhaps they fear that reality is seeping through, as in a Philip K. Dick story, so they have to shout louder and longer to mask it.
7 comments:
What a fascinating theory. And as a sports-fan, I suppose I ought to take offense, but my sport of choice is hockey. We really do have to congregate in dank parking structures to talk about it in murmurs; ain't no one on the news ever going to.
I apologize if you are insulted. I hesitated about posting that because so many friends and relatives are sports fans, and I didn't want to insult them for the sake of a few yuks. (Maybe for a lot of yuks...) But I really do feel strongly about sports coverage replacing news, so I went ahead.
In Denver, hockey gets coverage during the season, but the real enthusiasm is reserved for the Big Three, with TigerGolf currently added to that. We've had hail and tornado damage locally, and you may have heard about some kind of water damage in far-off Iowa and a war in Iraqnam, but all of that gets just a brief mention before they go back to talking about Eldrick's ACL.
Chris, thing is, I'm pretty sure my Dad is (mostly) joking about what the reign of King David would be like for sports fans. (Sling marksmanship, however, would of course be enthusiastically promoted.) But there are a lot of people who follow sports news with feverish intensity who have no idea whatsoever -- because they choose to have no idea -- that, e.g., the allegedly Democratic House is about to pass a bill immunizing telecoms from the role in the Bush Administration's illegal spying program. Those of us who do care about such matters have no choice about being inundated with sports news; those who care mostly about sports can happily turn their brains off when it comes to other matters.
Believe me, not offended. And I'd noticed the trend toward sports swallowing the rest of the news recently as well; I had attributed it to the fact that, lately, Boston teams have not sucked. Interesting to know that it's been happening elsewhere as well.
And besides, if pressed, my opiate-for-the-masses of choice would definitely be drink. I say the news could use a little more of that!
I confess as well, one thing I enjoy about the local news is the fluff-factor. I'm a news junkie, but rarely do I hear anything approaching actual news on our local stations -- something I find oddly charming. I think anybody who gets their news entirely from the local and national broadcasts over dinner probably has a pretty skewed view of what's going on in the world (and how could they not, with lead-ins like "What you don't know about apple juice COULD KILL YOU!"). Sports or no, I think the news was sunk as soon as networks realized they could turn a profit on it. And to think that the news was intended to be their payment for free use of the airwaves...
chris,
I'm glad you're not offended.
It hadn't occurred to me before that news has changed from an obligation to a profit center. I think that must be true for local news, especially.
Actually,
I don't get news from any of the news channels, because I believe they stopped actually broadcasting 'real' news years ago. Now they just repeat sound-bytes...
If they say it enough, Americans will believe it enough...
Shoot, I don't even know if the news I read is real!
Someone, tell me, what's REALLY going on in the world?
lahdeedah,
That's what those Internets tubes are for! I get my news from the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/), Raw Story (http://www.rawstory.com/), Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/), etc.
I watch the local news broadcasts to find out why those police cars were screaming south on Wadsworth Blvd. while I was driving north. They're not much good for anything else (the local news broadcasts, I mean, not the police) (although ... ). National news broadcasts aren't good for anything, although I do watch MSNBC on election nights, because the various Web sites that report numbers seem to get overwhelmed pretty quickly.
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