It's quite the task on most days to weed through all the "news" that's reported from various sources and try to glean the few nuggets of truth that might give you an idea of the state of the world. There is television, radio, newspapers, weblogs, newsmagazines, tabloids, and god knows what else offering a continual bombardment of opinions, facts, points of view, reports, documents, undisclosed sources, and of course, good old rumour.
Then there are the interpreters who will tell you that what you read meant something other than what it was you thought it meant. Or even if it does mean that, it doesn't matter because it is irrelevant to the big picture, which they never bother to describe.
The stuff that's reported as facts by those in all those various media are not based on the person writing the piece or the person who saw or witnessed an event. No, he or she has been told what's happened by someone who "officially" knows what happened. It’s based on documents that have no provenance or witnesses who mysteriously appear for press conferences and then vanish off the face of the earth. Reporters are planted (sorry, embedded) supposedly to allow them access, but access to what? Access to what someone wants them to see, or what's to be seen?
All of the above is referred to as the legitimate news, which brings us to its illegitimate offspring or siblings. Although on some days it's hard to tell the two apart, there is still no doubting the gap separating the two in terms of credibility and believability. To me that raises the question of the necessity for "Social News" or "Celebrity News."
Those doing the writing and those being written about get their egos massaged, and we are led to believe that they are of some socially redeeming value because it's always to do with a party for this or a benefit for that. That the combined cost of the clothing worn by those in attendance is roughly equivalent to that of the GNP of a small country is neither here nor there.
Even without an event to bring them into focus as a group, we are told that, because of their wealth, as individuals they are more important and more interesting than other segments of society. The diamonds they wear and the clothes they buy are more important than the life rescued by some paramedic on the sidewalk below their penthouse apartment.
What is the public fascination with these people? Does it stem from a form of envy or is it simply a matter of living vicariously through them so that we may experience what we are told is the ultimate in achievements: the ability to inherit wealth successfully.
Article comments
1 - Diane Ensey
I have a feeling that gossip and intense interest in our social "betters" goes back to the cave when the group gossipped about Glog and Una every time they went hunting.
Seriously, though, the whole celebrity thing seems to be a reflection of the unhappiness and dissatisfaction with our lives. We jump at the chance to live vicariously through someone else's life or to see how their lives are no different than our own.
There is also the "car wreck" mentality where you can't NOT look. I'm guilty of this sometimes. Where does this come from?
2 - chancelucky
I'm sure that gossip columns will continue to exist, but to me this story was really more about the fact that Murdoch's people tried to "sell" immunity from the column to at least one person.
It makes you wonder about what else Murdoch's news folk "report" as news.