Self-scrutiny is important in every profession, including the news media. All of us who work in media should re-examine what we do and how we do it as we do it. And, in fact, we do.
I, for one, am disgusted about the saturation coverage, coast to coast, day and night, of the endless saga of Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie. For those of you who were living in a cave for the past six or seven weeks, let me update you. Petito and Laundrie were young friends, apparently romantically involved, who set out on a cross-country road trip many weeks ago. Somewhere in the West, they began to bicker and abuse each other, as witnesses noted. Petito went missing; Laundrie “disappeared.” Later, Petito’s body was found in Wyoming parkland. She’d been strangled. Laundrie, from Florida, could not be found. They found him dead weeks later in Florida swampland. End of story? Oh no, not by a long shot!
Of course it’s a terribly tragic that Petito was murdered. However, I would like to ask why the P-L “news story” was given such obsessive coverage morning, noon and night? So many horrific incidents, so similar to that one, happen virtually every day. Some are never even reported widely because, sad to say, they happen so often they fall from the radar of “news.”
The never-ending P-L story became as pointless and monotonous as that incessant barrage of witless TV ads for Liberty Insurance with that dumb jingle – “Liberty, Liberty, Liberty . . . Liberty.” Those saturation ads show goony “people” (actors) doing silly skits in front of the Statue of Liberty, projected on some ad-studio background. What does insurance have to do with the Statue of Liberty? And what does Liberty Insurance have to do with a “Limu” car driver and his sidekick, an emu, both sporting identical yellow shirts? Pass the barf bag. Enough!
The incessant coverage of the P-L saga is almost as lamebrain as the American media’s (and public’s) fixation on the British “Royals” and even the goofy itty-bitty “fashion” hats they wear at functions. Enough already!!
Every day when I open a newspaper, click on my online news sources or turn on TV, there it is again – the ongoing P-L story. Coverage of her funeral, coverage of the hunt for Laundrie, constant coverage of the stake-out of Laundrie’s parents’ Florida home. There were rumors of sightings far and wide and even of an arrest of a Laundrie look-a-like. Finally, his body had been found in swampland.
OK, end of story? Oh no! We have to hear more and more about it. I did not read or listen to those overheated follow-ups. The headlines alone disgusted me. The morning after I wrote this column, Oct. 23, I checked news online. Sure enough, yet another P-L headline, this one from CNN: “See why police say they confused Brian Laundrie with his mother.”
How many women went missing in the past six or seven weeks, ones that went utterly unknown because of the P-L obsession? How many other pressing stories went unreported or ignored because of that on-the-road escapade that ended in death?
Not since Bonnie and Clyde in the 1930s has a traveling couple been so obsessively reported by the media. I am very supportive of most news companies. I am happily proud to be a member of that checks-and-balance “Fourth Estate,” as the “Press” is often dubbed.
In recent years, the media (“Enemy of the People”) have been vilified by bully autocrats, including congressional leaders fulminating about “fake news” at every turn, which is an almost laughable irony because they are the ones spouting the biggest whoppers, not the news media. Meantime, democracy is in mortal danger.
Proud as I am of the American media – most of it anyway – the P-L obsession (24-7) was, in my opinion, a low point in modern American journalism. It was just way too much. It’s still too much because it’s not over yet.
