I was watching The Daily Show the other night when Jon Stewart said something that reminded me of some old fake headlines I wrote in 2003.
Stuff like (some are dated but still funny if you know the reference),
“New York Mets Win World Series: Cite Snow in Hell”
“President Bush Renames Three Stooges: Axis of Brilliancy.”
“Up Next on FOX: Why CBS is Brainwashing You”
“Lobbyists Distraught by Lack of Influence: Cite Growing Voter Interest”
“Up Next on ESPN: The World Series of Tarot Reading”
“President Bush Declares War on Evil Ottoman Empire: Operation Orwell”
“California Gov. Gray Davis Fiddles as State Burns: More Than Just Gonorrhea”
“Hick Sees Elvis in Spit Cup; Then Realized It Was His Reflection”
“France Reluctantly Announces Original Name of French Fries: Hitler’s Delight”
“NBC’s ‘Must See Thursday’ Added to Axis of Evil: Bush cites Rachel’s Bastard Child”
“Saddam Hussein’s Bunker Explored Dramatically by Geraldo Rivera: Then Trapped”
“Bah Mitzvah Clown Takes Wrong Turn: Ends up at Home of Jehovah’s Witnesses”
“Creepy Theater Vendor Makes Sweet, Sweet Love to Extra Spicy Nachos”
I wrote those fake headlines for a radio producer, amongst other material that was humorous and otherwise. It goaded some nostalgia from way back when I thought I was paying my dues to work in radio. I was and I wasn’t.
You see, the producer I worked with hailed from the Great and Powerful New York Media. He was on his way to having a talk radio show at KFBK in Sacramento and wanted me on the staff as a producer. I was nearly hired but as fate would have it, I wasn’t.
After which I thought I should get with reality and find a real job. As fate would have it, that job would be at the Liberty Lake Home Depot in Washington state, where shortly after I started, a guy known as UFO Phil was kicked out of the store while trying to film his movie.
The reason that seemed unreal to me is that UFO Phil made his first appearance in fall of 1997 on the KDON radio show produced by the producer I knew.
I took it as a sign that I was being called to media, which seems hypocritical, because I often express my ire with the mainstream media.
The fall of 1997 is also when I began my inexplicably incessant interest for media. I was the type of kid that was interested in Nielsen ratings, surveys and demographics. My only “crime” was to think that the Internet was the future of the media.
I do not think of my articles as personal attacks, but rather constructive criticism. I do not feel pretentious in doing so, because I simply state things from the perspective of a viewer, which are needed for them to stay in business. I do so, because I believe that people in media are generally smart enough to be disdainful of predictability.
Around the same time, that I started working at The Home Depot was the same time that Anna Nicole Smith died.
You see, growing up, I was the type of teenager that went to convenience stores to buy Time Magazine and US News and World Report, and a healthy dose of Mad Magazine. I actually wanted “real” news (but what is real news?), because I was a geek and proud of it.
Something had to change.
Thus, I like to think that criticism from a viewer would have a Heisenberg effect that would catalyze change in the media that has become addicted to sensationalism and weak narratives, out of expeditiousness but not stupidity.
How would I know that the people I write about would read? I gambled that they Google their names or subjects of their interest, or they have people do it for them.
Just predicting the next move from rational possibilities, so in a way, they should be flattered by the fact that I assume that they are rational.
There is nothing worse and creepy than knowing that someone is viewing you.
Reverse voyeurism is in essence is what I have used on The Bleacher Report, in hopes that people in the media would become jaded by self-indulgent narcissism and focus on substantive news once again. Criticism from within inner circles is never quite the same as the words of an outsider that ring true.
News had and has sunk so low that there really is no discernible difference between bloggers and some (not all) people in the media, except money.
Most cable news these days boils down to the question, which political side is more hypocritical? That is not to evaluate the validity or virtues of someone’s politics or professionalism, but simply to say that the common good is never served when people are only interested in winning debates.
So, why predicate this article from something on The Daily Show, which spoofs the same mainstream media that has jaded me?
Just thought it was ironic in its own ironic way.
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