Media as Watch Dog Dwindles as Palin Sightings at All-Time Highs

If there has been any doubt that national media outlets prefer hype over substance, the days since the November 4 elections are living proof. Not even one day after a landslide loss for Senator John McCainJohn McCain and the press was all over Sarah PalinSarah Palin for her 2012 intentions, and continues to put her in the spotlight despite her low popularity nationally.

Regardless of Palin's potential, or lack there of, the attentions given to Palin since November 4 say as much about Palin's lack of political savvy and known-how as it does about the media's desire to push non-newsworthy events down the throats of helpless millions.

In the days since the election Palin has been interviewing far and wide, and garnering a lot of attention for what appears to be nothing but old news and speculations. The media has allowed her to spout derogatory quips about her handlers, the McCain staffers, whom she referred to as "jerks", and in general, how the media (yes, the same people interviewing her now) has not done their job, and should have "done more" to let the "truth" come out, whatever Sarah decided that truth to be, no doubt.

What bothers me here is not that Sarah is getting all this attention, which I might add can only harm any potentials she might have for the future, but the blatant way in which the media has glommed onto her like paparazzis at an all-night celeb buffet.

So why does the media give this woman so much press, while at the same time always prefacing any article about her with "her popularity ratings plummeted during the campaign and are at all-time lows"?

The answer, sadly, is that the media is no longer the watch dog it used to be. Instead, it is tabloid press wrapped in pretty bows and hologram videos. What is important to national media today is no longer the articles that summarize justice versus injustice, good versus evil, and the guarding of citizen rights by power hungry government and politicians. These issues still garner at least a paragraph or two, but they are not the focus of media dollars.

No, the real issues of the day are those that sensationalize the dramatic. That rip your attention from the movie you are watching as you aremesmerized by gigantic touch-screen maps and piped in video with cool-looking graphics and loud talking political commentators.

In today's competitive media world, it isn't enough to just "provide the news". Viewers and readers must also be entertained, and in order to entertain, you have to come up with the best toys, the most eye appealing look, and the wackiest ideas, otherwise, it seems, no one will listen.

What are the results of such a fantastic and entertainment-centric media? The 2008 national elections of course! Every race, every corner of the world, every candidate the media felt was of interest (and even some non-candidates al la Joe the Plumber) were politicized, to the benefit and use of the media.

On election night, it was a race to be the first to announce the results of an historic moment, either the first black president or first female vice president. The effort resulted in well-respected political news channels stepping all over themselves offering predictions of "potential" wins for one candidate over another, on one channel even BEFORE votes were counted!

This new entertainment dominant world has resulted in the news media becoming a conduit for making news, instead of trying to be the best to report the news as it happens, or, Heaven-forbid, shortly after it happens. In the race for the ever dwindling advertising dollar it has pushed boundaries never imagined by even William Randolph Hearst himself. Perhaps this also explains the slow yet painful decay of the American newspaper, as immediate entertainment takes over as a necessary evil for American news media efforts.

In today's media environment then, it makes sense why the press is all over themselves to get a piece of the Palin pie. It has nothing to do with her news-worthiness (that stock is obviously dry). Instead it has to do with cashing in on an icon of controversy that the media helped to create. By giving Palin a pedestal and a microphone, the media helps prop themselves up with stories that entertain and tantalize, or even better, outrage and anger.

By creating a media dependent upon entertainment, they have reduced their worth to nothing more than tabloid hearsay. Trust in media reports are at an all-time low, and no wonder. In an effort to try to keep viewers from going elsewhere, they have created a world of sensationalized half-truths, and prop it up as newsworthy. It's just too bad that along the way, they lost their own sense of identity and worth.