View From the Phlipside - Bread and Circuses

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside.

I’m probably going to lose some friends over this one.  Just goes with the territory I suppose.  I could always just blame it on Dan Rather since he’s the one who got the thought process rolling for me but since I happen to agree with him I’ll just take my lumps.

The former CBS News anchor recently wrote a piece for the Huffington Post complaining bitterly that in a time when news divisions are being cut back, where fewer correspondents work out of fewer foreign bureaus the networks (and this includes all the networks broadcast and cable) saw fit to spend millions of dollars to send hundreds of staff to London to cover what is essentially a very minor news story.

Yes, we’re talking about THE WEDDING.  And I happen to agree with Rather 100%.  This was an astounding and appalling waste of time talent and money.  Let’s be upfront about this.  While the bride was stunning and the groom handsome in his uniform and the wedding was a fairy tale princess kind of thing this was not a big news story.  This is what People magazine puts on the cover, it’s what Entertainment Tonight leads with on its broadcast.  It’s a 60 second clip on any serious news broadcast.  Not continuous live coverage.

The problem is that we don’t seem to have any serious news entities left in the world today.  Not when they devote this much time to a wedding of no particular national significance (be honest, if one of the Obama girls was old enough and got married would there be THIS kind of coverage?  Almost assuredly not), or the equally useless obsession with the President’s birth certificate.  None of this is news.  Sadly it is surely “what the people want” and voices will be raised that giving the people what they want is a good thing.  Count me unconvinced.  This kind of pandering to the lowest taste didn’t work out particularly well when practiced in the final days of the Roman Empire.  It saddens me to think that we are just as likely to be willingly herded to the demise of our culture as those Romans were.

The Princess is surely much easier on the eyes than the events in Rome.  But bread and circuses and still bread and circuses.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2011