I am not a journalist, not educated in the skills of the written word past my High School education. And by the stage I began to get interested in writing, I was in an anti-school state of mind. I hated exams, and that’s what it felt like school was like, one massive exam.
But this doesn’t mean that I am invalid to comment on the amount of tripe in the media, which is dubbed as ‘journalism’. If I went with my impulse, and followed a career into journalism, I would have been surrounded by the egomaniacs, who are hellbent on being ‘celebrities’. Something that sickens me. I would have loved to have a career in journalism, because I love writing and I enjoy discussions that follow one sharing their opinion on events. That’s it! I wouldn’t want to be on television, as I find that seems to be full of arrogance, and my day-to-day life is filled with that already, thanks very much.
Teenagers now follow a career in journalism because they think they will get on TV, so that they can become ‘celebrities’. That isn’t journalism, that isn’t reporting something true to yourself. I think it would have destroyed me, to have to communicate something, which wouldn’t be true to myself. Maybe this is a fault I have, that I can’t write about something I have no passion or interest in. I don’t know if I view writing too much of an art form. Because that’s what I think it is, I feel that it is an emotional release, where you have to be inspired write something of interest. Like, I have to believe what I’m writing about, or it just becomes very transparent and boring. Because I have always looked upon all types of literature in this way, I think that I find it alarming that so many people use it for nothing else, but to make themselves famous.
As a child, I dreamed of writing a novel, but that was more because I felt a bit of pride when I saw someone reading what I wrote. It made me feel so light-headed, if the reader enjoyed my creation. Now, I just feel jaded with media, because it seems that a lot of things seems to be lacking emotion or have an ulterior motive. This has been a thought that has bothered me within the last few years, particularly around the time of the General Election. I found that whatever, newspaper or TV news report I encountered, it seemed like they all had their own political alliances. Like this form of educating the Great British public, came with unavoidable propaganda for a Political movement. Maybe I am naive, but I am of the opinion that all media should be impartial. Ok, I know that seems like I am contradicting what I have just said, but I think that if you have all the journalists saying what they believe in, and then you have a variety of opinions, then you have platform for a range of views to be heard and then allow the public to make their own decision.
But that is giving too much power to the public isn’t it? We live in a society where it is dictated to us who we should admire. There are thousands of ‘celebrities’ who have won their ready-built fame through ‘reality’ TV. Why are we being forced to celebrate some mediocre singer, who fucked someone once? Shouldn’t it be the person who has spent her life crafting her own voice, who is still singing in local bars, getting all the attention? Shouldn’t we be celebrating the lives of the doctors who save a normal person? Why should we accept that a man kicking a ball for 90 minutes a week, is able to earn 200 times the salary of the normal working person?
It’s obvious that things in society are far more imbalanced, than just the media. The big thing I have an issue with, is the emergence of the ‘showbiz media’, the magazines, TV shows and blogs dedicated to telling the warts-and-all tales of famous people. I believe that the ‘celebrity’ culture was created, to take the attention away from more pressing matters, such as the more unpalatable parts of the news, which often goes unreported. Proof of this, is when a class of 8-year-old school children were asked who was Cheryl Cole’s estranged husband, 78 out of 83 kids correctly said it was Ashley Cole. The same children were asked if they knew who was Prime Minister, 12 correctly said David Cameron, 21 said The Queen and the rest didn’t have a clue. Is that the message we want our media giving to children? ‘Who cares who runs the country, some nonentity’s relationship status is what’s important’.
That is why I both want and don’t want to be part of the media. I would like to get the opportunity to tell all these mislead sheep what is important, to help them get a better understanding of the world around them. But, I know that the ‘words of reason’ would find it hard to break through the latest relationship woes of whatever overpaid footballer is the topic of the day. Which would make me feel worthless, that ‘real news’ would be overshadowed by gossip. It makes you wonder how much of the media is controlled by the government, are we being sold gossip as news to try to dumb us down. As they say, ‘ignorance is bliss’ so it would be easier for the government to hide as much as they can, and just fill the gaps with ‘celeb scandal’. This sounds like something from a George Orwell novel, but it could happen, and I wouldn’t be suprised if it already was.
Terrifying thought isn’t it? How much of our ‘free media’ is actually free?
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