On Monday morning I wrote about the very real
probability that the United States was about to open military hostilities with
Syria. The readership of this blog responded with a collective yawn, a few
scattered page views. Yesterday, I wrote about a raunchy performance by Miley
Cyrus at the MTV awards show and everything blows up, the most page views I’ve
had in over a year. Apparently, even at a sleepy back water media outpost like
The Tempest, sex sells.
Everyone I know complains about the media. It’s too biased;
it’s too infatuated with the sensational, too enamored with flash, while
ignoring “real” news. After writing a blog for nearly three years now, I can
say without hesitation that, while the political and cultural bias of the media
is a reflection of them, their promotion of the sensational is a reflection of
us.
If this blog was my living, if I depended on page views
for my income, in order to survive I would constantly have to write about the
salacious. It is guaranteed to attract readers… period. Works every time. The
fact is that people aren’t interested in the federal budget deficit. They aren’t
interested in government corruption, malfeasance, or the erosion of our Fourth
amendment rights to privacy. They don’t even seem all that concerned about our
participation in yet another military adventure in the Middle East. But let a
twenty year old spoiled brat shake her bottom on an awards show and all of a
sudden Americans snap to attention.
Let me be clear on this. When I say “Americans,” I’m
talking about myself too. When I click on the Drudge Report or the Huffington
Post, I too tend to be drawn to the most provocative story. When I’m browsing
through the first page of the Wall Street Journal, what do I read first, the
story about the possible nominees to replace Ben Bernanke at the Fed, or the
latest embarrassing sexual depravity to be unearthed about Anthony Weiner? Too
often, it’s Weiner. Which one of these stories will have the biggest impact on
our nation and actually affect my daily life and prosperity? Seeing as the
Chairman of the Federal Reserve is the most powerful man/woman in the world,
the answer is self-evident, but my eyes can’t resist the dirt on Weiner.
Maybe it’s all a giant conspiracy. Maybe the big
shots in the media think that if they can keep us all excited and exercised
about Miley Cyrus, Anthony Weiner, Alex Rodriguez and Lady Gaga, we won’t
notice that the wheels are flying off the country and we’re headed for the
Grand Canyon.
Bread and circuses.
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