First, please forgive me from shamelessly borrowing a phrase from John Cole's Balloon Juice regarding my feelings about the establishment media in this country. It's one of my favorite phrases, and wish it'd become a more widely used hashtag (Seriously, I think I might be the only person using it...)
...But I digress. Only a little.
No, friends I would like to talk about something that has been going on for at least as long as I've been alive (probably), but has only in the past few days really rankled me.
The coverage of "Black Friday" as a legitimate news story by our failed media (experiment).
Most of my consternation has been directly linked to my preferred provider of local news, actually. It was last night after coming home from the family dinner that I watched the local news of ABC affiliate WVEC-13, AKA 13 News Now and saw about a good 5-10 minutes (plus or minus) of straight coverage of "Black Friday Deals!". Sending reporters out in the field to riveting news locations such as...Toys R' Us, or Best Buy, to not only talk to the proverbial "Citizens on the Street", but I could not help feeling that they were simply carrying water for the businesses.
Indeed, 13 News has got a plethora of stories solely about "Black Friday" up on their site right now.
An entire SECTION devoted to Black Friday, including "Deals" and "Shopping Maps" below.
A story about early bird shoppers going after said deals.
Another story about crowds on Black Friday.
Now, of course, this isn't just a local ABC Affiliate doing this. No, this sort of thing is all over the place on the quote-unquote Major News Networks' websites today, to say little of their television programming today.
As of this writing, here is a rundown of what the newsiers of the day were talking about, compiled from their websites:
ABC News
A window offering scrolling headlines; First one I saw was of Black Friday, and the second one was actually of the Ferguson Protests moving towards Black Friday stores. Not a bad dynamic, actually, IMO.
NBC News
One "Top Story" headline about Black Friday, but the lead story was of a shooting in Austin, TX.
CBS News
The worst of the bunch, because their big lead story, blasted with large headline and big picture was about Black Friday shopping. Ugh.
CNN
Had one section with a bunch of Black Friday stories, AND an "Editor's Choice" headline banner that also included Black Friday.
MSNBC
Large story on the possibility of Darren Wilson resigning as a cop, and a rundown of 10 "top" stories, only one of which was solely about the consumer aspect of Black Friday, while another mentioned the Ferguson Black Friday protests. Not terrible.
Of course, guess who brings up the rear?
Fox News
With a Drudge like headline about "GET OUT OF GITMO" as there are apparently plans to release more people from Guantanamo Bay, but I'm sure there's another side to that story and, of course, that's for another diary if need be. But of course it's Anti-Obama, All The Time!
They do mention Black Friday as well, but it's not nearly as played up as the other stories.
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What irks me the most is just how complicit, if not enabling, of crass consumerism that the media has become.
I get it; There will always be "puff" style pieces around the holidays, and some of that will include consumer habits and activity. After all, how much money consumers are spending and merchants are making is certainly economic activity worth reporting on.
But when the media coverage of an annual holiday "tradition" has devolved into sounding more like fawning advertisements instead of straight news coverage, that's when I start feeling really sick to my stomach.
And let's not forget that there are a lot of myths about how good any "Black Friday" deals really are, or whether it's the wool being pulled over consumer's eyes.
Fun anecdote: I Googled the phrase "Black Friday deals not actually deals"; The first few results I got were...reports on Great Black Friday Deals...and THEN I got my results about the myths of Black Friday.
Check it out for yourself if you are so inclined.
Or, even more fun. Search "Black Friday deals not deals" (that syntax exactly) and see what Google thinks you could have been searching for.
I am not naive to think that in this day and age that we'll see a time when we don't see any of this type of "reporting" in the major news media. It's almost certainly been a part of the landscape for some time, and will continue as such.
But whether it is a change in the messages being broadcast, or just my increased awareness, I can't recall a time in which the Failstream Media so blatantly appeared to be shilling for big businesses than right now.
Nevermind stories like:
Black Friday Protests at Walmart at their largest according to Mother Jones
Or, the stories that inevitably happen at least once a year...
Stories of people being hurt, or even killed, during Black Friday consumer ridiculousness
So Happy Post-Thanksgiving Friday, everyone.
Try not to get hurt. Seriously. Big Business needs your money, and the Media needs your headlines.
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Postscript:
I had a bunch of screenshots taken of the news websites for some show and tell. I didn't post them so as not to run afoul of the "licensing" caution in the image queue. Could I have used them legally? I'm not really sure. Went on side of caution. Any advice would be appreciated for future writing!