media ratings and tabloid stories

so the most recent post on my favourite anderson cooper blog, all things anderson is about ratings [news specific] and what kind of trash people are interested in. you can read it here. it was stated by sheryn [the author of the post] that john mark karr did an interview with larry king, and right after was on fox. so to make sure that you don't change the channel, cnn dedicated the first half hour of anderson cooper 360 to analyzing the karr interview. complete with experts on law and psychology. that way, you'd stick wtih cnn for something new than switch to fox for another interview. amazing how the cable news world works. but not surprising. as i've said before, the news media is nothing but a bunch of blood-thirsty, ratings-hungry story-tellers. i have little to no faith in anything i see on the news. maybe i'm overly critical, but that's what happens.

my point to this whole thing is that it's disgusting that cnn even agreed to interview him. and that there was a ratings battle over it. who cares! people are rediculous! why do you want to give this guy the time of day? the more interested people are in him, the more he is going to get out of it! he's going to end up with a book deal or something and that is just wrong.
so sheryn asks the question, "are we a tabloid nation?". the answer is definitely yes. a ratings war over scum like john mark karr? there are way more important things going on in the world. can you say, nuclear north korea? and even if cnn feels the need to stay within their own country, that's fine! there is plenty going on there! they have an election coming up!

i didn't watch anderson cooper last night. because i just don't care about karr or what he has to say. i left a comment on ata about this post [which i thought was awesome - the post, not my comment] but i think it got mis understood. someone commented back that to not watch 360 just because we don't like a story is to cut our noses off to spite our face. if we don't watch, 360 gets low ratings, and then we lose 360 [except she said we lose anderson]. i wasn't not watching to try to damage cnn. this wasn't about teaching them a lesson. i just didn't care. and she writes back,

"Lastly, you're right that money drives so much of what goes on. If he gets a book deal, it's because people will buy the book. They don't give book deals if they don't believe they will make money on it."

obviously. but that's the frustrating part. that people will buy it. and someone will make money. that's what makes me mad. the fact that people are so frigging nosey about the most retarded things! why do you want to read all the fucked up details? all these interviews and books aren't about trying to figure him out for the greater good. they knew he was trouble in 2001 and they blew it. they lost the evidence. all the signs were there and they knew he was sketchy. now its about money. frigging greedy bastards who just see dollar signs.

i'm so frustrated i can't even think straight.