Days of Whining Poses

Last night I watched several newscasts on TV. I know that dates me and places me into a certain demographic: I also read newspapers, get books from the library and remember a time when "celebrities" were artists of some dramatic or musical ability, rather than individuals willing to embarass themselves on reality shows. However, that is not my main point today.

What I saw on virtually every network I turned on was the same lead story: New parking meters that were causing inconvenience in some manner to those trying to park in downtown Chicago. Now, please do not get me wrong. I can be as annoyed and angry as the next guy over something trivial and inconsequential. In fact, I recognize it is a Constitutional right to complain bitterly about any decision made by anyone who is in a position of authority - right up there with the right to privacy on the internet and the right to digital cable television.

What concerned me was that the network news not only expended significant resources in reporting about the issue, but they placed it as the lead story, thereby exagerating its importance and creating a bigger issue out of it. Apparently I am in the minority, but I thought that North Korea's threat to use nuclear weapons, the elections in Iran, the continued tension in Pakistan and President Obama's focus on completing changing our health care system merited more of a discussion. This made me reflect on several other news stories I had seen or read recently, and I realized that almost all of them had the same thing in common: space and time were given to those who complained most loudly about something.

That reminded me of something I learned in college. When I received my first bad review about a musical I had written, I questioned the reviewer about why they had been so negative in the newspaper. The reviewer replied "You don't advance your career writing positive reviews."

Although that greatly bothered me, at least it was in a subjective area such as theatrical reviews. The concept has now been broadened to cover supposedly objective fields such as news reporting, economics and global affairs. It is now more important to find someone who will loudly whine about an issue than to report on its relative merits. I am certain that the reporters spoke to several citizens about the parking meters. It was only the loudest and most clever whiner that made his way onto the newscast.

Our children are now learning that the way to get on TV, or Youtube, is to dress like a fool at an athletic event, attempt a ludicrous stunt with resultant injury, complain in a clever and obnoxious manner, or agree to eat fried tarantula. Marshall MacLuhan's prediction of fifteen minutes of fame has turned into two minutes of infamy for every individual who wants it.

It has ever been so. As we read in Proverbs, "Every prudent man acts out of knowledge, but a fool exposes his folly" (Proverbs 13:16). The difference now is that technology allows the folly to be more readily exposed, exploited and used for better ratings.

I hope my children learned this valuable lesson as I whined and complained to them about the newscasts I was watching.