I started out today being grateful that the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton is over, assuming that the out-of-control media coverage of the event is over. That, of course, is being overly optimistic. We now have weeks of re-caps to endure, coupled (no pun intended) no doubt with the ongoing voyeurism of following the two around so that we can learn what dress Kate will wear today, what they had for breakfast, and what domestic bliss looks like for royalty.
The lead-up, wedding itself, and aftermath have rightly been called a circus. However, I take the meaning of “circus” to be less that of lots of craziness in the pursuit of fun. As is typical of our modern corporate media, this cirucus is an event of relatively little importance to the world is transformed into the most important event in human history (thereby justifying the amount of resources spent and time consumed on covering every odd little detail of the event). This is much more in line with the “bread and circus” concept that supposedly kept the inhabitants of the Roman Empire distracted from the serious issues that affected them. Put another way, the frenzied reporting over Kate’s dresses and the route their carriage takes through London serves to push serious news out of the way: economic turmoil, revolts in the Middle East, narrow-minded political bickering, two on-going wars, high unemployment, corporate greed–the list goes on. The list goes on.
This is not to say that a small group of Machiavellis sit in boardrooms somewhere & decide on ways to keep the citizenry distracted. While it’s possible, it seems rather unlikely (it gives too much credit to small-minded people). Rather, the hype surrounding the Royal Wedding is part of a mindset that serves to refocus attention away from those things arguably more socially important. The concept of the Fourth Estate–that institutional news through the various media must serve to inform the citizenry of an open, democratic society–is, if not dead, then on life support. Corporate profits, generated through advertising that is coupled to viewership, trumps any implied social contract.
The argument that news coverage simply reflects the interests of the viewers doesn’t hold much water. Consider that the NY Times conducted a poll that showed less than a third of Americans had even a moderate interest in the Royal Wedding. A similar poll from the UK showed that nearly 80% of Britons were “largely indifferent” or “could care less” about William & Kate’s nuptials. It seems that the senior editors who feel they are in touch with their audience’s wants, aren’t. The best one could say is that we’re seeing a “wag the dog” effect: if we make it into a news story, our viewers will want it to be a news story.” Arrogance reigns supreme.
There’s too little space here to go into the depths of the problem and its effects on our society, even from my outsiders point-of-view. (And I still haven’t had my breakfast yet.) Let it suffice for now that the only real hope I see of this changing is for an increasing number of people to start seeking out and frequenting alternative news organizations, be they individuals, small groups, or institutions still dedicated to the concept of the Fourth Estate. The corporate world’s obsession with profit over responsibility is its weakness. When we fail to patronize their circuses and instead give our attention to principled reporting, we leave them to choke on their own nonsense.
