Is it the Media or We Who Are at Fault?

The LeBron James situation seems to have more people asking whether it is society or the media who are at fault in following the exploits of a 25-year old basketball phenom. There are many people who are blaming the media for following James' every move.

The media are reflections of society. I know that there are those who believe that the media shape the discourse of society; that they have an "agenda setting" function. They may have had at one time. I think we are giving them far too much credit today. The media, particularly the mass media and cable outlets, are struggling to attract viewers. They are also struggling to keep costs down. As a result, we have had a seemingly endless steam of "reality TV" shows. These are cheeper to produce and seem to attract large numbers of viewers. How many more "Bachelors", "Bachelorets", "Last Comic Standing", "America's Got Talent", etc, etc, can we possibly watch. Yet every time we think we've saturated the concepts, along comes "Biggest Loser", "Iron Chef", and more and more. Every conceivable interest is pursued by the media. And, yes, we keep watching. More people vote for candidates on "American Idol" than vote for candidates in real elections. We seem to care more about who has the best voice or best dance steps than who runs the country.

So, is there any wonder that the media saw the opportunity to follow every step LeBron James made? He was the latest reality TV star of the week. His exploits were discussed everywhere. The night of James' announcement on ESPN, I was walking by a high-end restaurant when a man came out of the restaurant on his cell phone asking his friend to watch ESPN and text him LeBron James' decision as soon as it was known. I could tell by his face that he was probably dismayed that he had to have dinner with his wife on such an important night and during prime time.

LeBron has learned to be a master marketer--or he has hired people around him who are good at marketing him. He knows how to milk our interests. But, it doesn't take a great marketer to get the media interested. This week there has been more coverage of what Lindsay Lohan had printed on her nail during her trial than about the debates in Congress over a new financial bill. The media don't care if you have talent; you just have to be of interest to large numbers of people.

There are many excuses for how bad the media have become. They have to contend with 24-hour headline news, the Internet, blogs, etc. The normal media are competing for attention. So, most have become entertainment services rather than news services. Watch local TV in most markets in the US and one wonders where the news is.

So, who is at fault? The media or society? Both are at fault. American society (and I keep this to US society because there still are good news services in many other countries like Canada and the UK in which there are deep discussions of important issues on the normal, nightly news shows, both local and national). American society has become dumbed down to a point that it is all sound-bites and personality. Following LeBron becomes no different from following Sarah Palin or Lindsay Lohan or the President's latest run to get a hamburger, or Bill Clinton at the World Cup. We loose sight of whose personality is important to us and whose is really unimportant in the grant scheme of things.

To quote Pogo: "we have met the enemy and they are us"