MetaFic

For the last several months, I have been writing, as I find time and inclination, an essay discussing using the media and writing articles in fanfiction. While I regularly check out several internet news sites, BBC News, the Wallstreet Journal, and Fox News, for my news, as I have written this essay I have made a conscious effort to look at many other professional news sources and journalism websites. I have found the process rather enlightening and at the same time discouraging.

Every news source has a slant to it, whether it be political or social or whatever. I rarely find objective journalism anymore. And the journalism that is fairly objective is often slanted in what they do not report versus what they do report. However, slant is not what has recently caught my eye. Slant has existed since the printing press was invented, and Gutenberg decided what version of the Bible to print.

Rather I have noticed an increasing trend, especially among the online news service, to refer to note worthy people in a less than professional manner and to be rather glibb with their headlines. Gossip rags and tabloids have always tended toward schoolyard language in their headlines and articles, but lately that has crossed over into "professional journalism."

Twenty or thirty years ago, it would have been almost unheard of for a news story to refer to a senator or congressman without their title, or at least by full name. For a president, governor, or prime minister it was unheard of. Yet today, the mainstream news shouts out headlines like:

"Blago in Impeachment Battle."
"Hillary's cabinet chances shadowed by Bill's fundraising."
"You can call her Grandmother Palin."

With our fast paced world where you can get an email or text message while camping in the mountains, or where sound byte media is preferred to in-depth reporting, or the prevalence of LEET and texting abbreviations that plague even English classrooms, it is little wonder that journalism looks to the gimmick and the shock and the irreverent to catch the eye of everyday keyboard jockey. But why?

To paint with a broad brush, as individuals we are defined through our parents and friends and environment. As a society we are defined through the collective of our mythology and our past. As such, since a society is made up of individuals, we as individuals are defined through the collective of our mythology and our past. Media and news acts as the modern equivalent of the storyteller that once held the shared traditions of a tribe or village.

Since the media encapsulates our traditions, has replaced the moral compass of many, and is created in such a way to be persuasive and pervasive, it shapes us as much as we shape it. However, where as we as individuals and small groups can create a pure community with rock-solid culture and traditions, the media, when it takes from us, is forced to generalize it and soften the message to become palatable to the majority. So in return, we emulate the generalized nature of the media.

So, the question then comes out: Is the glibness and irreverence of the news and the media a result of our own societal degradation, or are we as a society simply parroting the irreverence of a small group of elite whose culture is made palatable in the media's retelling?

Or perhaps to simplify the question, who guides an individual's actions?

In the end, the media reflects the majority and the majority reflects the media. Eventually, the media becomes a sentience unto itself. We have created a religion in our media, and I think more and more look to it to guide their actions. I believe that people are a river who take the path of least resistance and it takes a great deal of strength to be a boulder within that river and shout out, I will not be swayed.