{"id":14,"date":"2008-05-02T18:25:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-02T18:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/boblets.wordpress.com\/?p=14"},"modified":"2014-02-09T00:54:38","modified_gmt":"2014-02-08T23:54:38","slug":"media-%e2%80%93-gossip-central-and-major-irony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/barebente.com\/blog\/2008\/05\/media-%e2%80%93-gossip-central-and-major-irony\/","title":{"rendered":"media \u2013 gossip central and major irony"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I don’t read papers much anymore, I don’t have a telly.<\/p>\n

In fact, I have been sans telly for …oh.. the main part of the last sixteen years. I had a telly the first four years, I used it as a pedestal for potted plants and asian souvenirs, considered making a fish-tank out of it, and watched, hungover, all in all four hours of the good Sir David Attenborough. I had it for months before I turned it on to figure out if it was colour or black and white. The thing is: some things on telly are good. Some first class stuff. But it is surrounded by trash. So either you turn it on \u2013 default \u2013 and accidentally bump into something good,… or… I simply forgot when to turn it on for the good stuff.
\n<\/p>\n

It’s hard to find the news and good stories in this overwhelming pile of gossip. If you read something, and it’s not interesting or have no value a week later \u2013 it’s gossip. Trash in, trash out. Simple equation.<\/p>\n

Yes, I see the point that if a five year old is hit by a train considering security issues would be relevant a week later. There is no argument without counter, there is no incident you cannot take far enough to mean something. Technically, philosophically.<\/p>\n

But the thing is: it doesn’t. Actually. Means. Anything. It is Not Important.<\/p>\n

Social pornography- we roll around in other peoples unfortunate lives, we thank the Universal Force(s) that it’s not us.I read a thing about a family whose house burned (down?) four times in a year, or something absurd like that. I think it’s supposed to make me feel enormously sorry for them. But as Oscar Wilde said: \u00ablosing one parent was understandable, but losing two just seemed careless\u00bb.<\/p>\n

Bad karma, maybe. But seriously.
\nThe unfortunate idiots getting their picture in the paper, with baby, desperate faces, and a pile of ashes in the background, might get support and money from people overwhelmed with pity. For them, there is an incentive. For the rest of us, it’s wallowing in others’ unfortunate lives. For me, it’s a confirmation that people are idiots.<\/p>\n

The fourth estate indeed.<\/p>\n

These \u00abnews\u00bb take up memory on my limited hard-drive. Begone, useless stories!<\/p>\n

We were all supposed to die of ebola\/sars\/bird flu and that epidemic that went on in India a few years ago… and some thing in Africa before that, whatsitsname. Most people have forgotten all about it already.
\nWe have leaky minds.<\/p>\n

I try to be a little selective.<\/p>\n

The true irony? I study media production.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t read papers much anymore, I don’t have a telly. In fact, I have been sans telly for …oh.. the main part of the last sixteen years. I had a telly the first four years, I used it as a pedestal for potted plants and asian souvenirs, considered making a fish-tank out of it, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16,24],"tags":[223,443,221,222],"class_list":["post-14","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-studies-education","tag-braindead","tag-media","tag-media-studies","tag-no-tv"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/barebente.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/tv.gif","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pCPJv-e","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/barebente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/barebente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/barebente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/barebente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/barebente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/barebente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6146,"href":"http:\/\/barebente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions\/6146"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/barebente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/barebente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/barebente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/barebente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}