COMMENT, Global – When I say global I mean English-speaking countries, like USA, UK & Australia. Here there is a rise of info-tainment disguised as journalism.

As an example: In Australia we have a program called Sunrise. It’s morning current affairs, sort of – really more about social issues and controversy.

The 2 presenters are:

Koch: A balding ex-Finance guy, who started as a leading Finance guru.

Mel: And a parochial Canberra reporter who somehow can read an auto-prompter.

And a team of mostly nice presenters who get shuffled around like a deck of cards, all overseen by producer Adam Boland.

Their competition is more serious current affairs with occasional silly moments, Today show. Who never really survived losing the serious Liebmann and Hayes.

The Sunrise show has descended into a farce of epic proportions.

Why does info-tainment matter?

When entertainment is clearly labeled entertainment it doesn’t matter.

When journalism and serious coverage is clearly labeled so, it doesn’t matter.

When opinion is labeled opinion, and news labeled news it doesn’t matter.

You will note this piece is labeled COMMENT, which clearly states it is an opinion.

The Chasers War on Everything, the most extreme TV show is clearly satire and labeled as such.

The problem is nobody is labeling any more.

In Sunrise Mel voices her opinion on almost every topic, and won’t let the so-called experts get a word in edgewise. People who used to follow her in Canberra told me she was vapid then, and she seems vapid now.

Further, the news bulletins eschew any real news, and play the same ‘puff-pieces’ preceded by the 1 to 3 ‘big items’ of the day. Often recycled from last night.

The brainy Natalie Barr, and the sportsman Mark Baretta look like they could choke when they read out some of the items. Perhaps they’ve been gagged, as is common?

(A big hurrah to Mal Walden who once said what he thought when reading Channel 10’s news: “Thank you Mike and coming up, the call to take cough medicines for toddlers off the shelves and is homework – like that hostess story – really a waste of time?”)

I used to enjoy Sunrise. David Koch used to have an acerbic wit before the show went mainstream. Sometimes controversial, which they ‘tamed’. He seemed real.

Now even the laughs seem hollow.

Mel seems to have something ‘over all of them’, and that something is surely not an intelligent opinion or comment when she talks over top of the experts.

On Finance, she continually makes fun of Koch, who has been one of Australia’s leading commentators.

What is this obsession with elevating the mediocrity of Mel (in my opinion) and dumbing down the content? We obviously think ‘dumb’ is ‘popular’.

I like to believe that people are smart enough to understand intelligent content. I like to believe that by dumbing it down, we stop creating intelligent comment.

Web 2.0 sites, are showing their is a strong interest in real, intelligent debate. Why are we getting served comment as news in some big media?

America is littered with examples of partisan opinion masquerading as News. Fox News is the start of that search…

We have always had ‘Yellow Journalism’, but this was against a background of ‘News of Record’ as the ideal. That ideal seems to have vanished.
And there has been a push to ‘dumb down’ journalism further in recent years.

Tabloids written for 8-year-old readers voicing opinions without any honest analysis.

Info-tainment programs assuming a mediocre presenter has an opinion more valid than anyone else.

Bring back Ray Martin, and the real Sixty Minutes. Sensational: sure at times. Meaningful: often. A complement to printed news: yes.

Now much news is becoming opinion, with real news being mixed up and squeezed out.

Why is this ‘dumbing down’ accelerating?

Simple. Web stats, viewer stats, better tracking.

Minute-by-minute tracking and web stat feedback tell editors what story is popular.

Whereas once a journalist’s discretion and producer/editor’s opinion where the sole determinant now it is the nameless faceless statistics people.

“Paris Hilton is popular, give them more Paris.” This has lead to the creation of vapid, stupid, empty media vessels like today’s celebrities that some of us can project our own inadequacies onto.

AP to their credit, attempted to go a week without Paris, which itself became a story.

What can We do?

Simple if you are reading web news don’t click on dumb sensationalist stories.

If you are lucky to have a viewer meter, switch off anytime a dumb story comes on.

Watch a few hours of intelligent TV a week, and encourage your friends.

If you use DIGG, digg only intelligent stories, and vote against any gossip/trash.

Don’t buy any trash media.

I am not saying become a soy-swilling intellectual…

I am just saying don’t let any statistics catch you reading dumb stories, let then catch you read smart stories instead!

Why again does it matter?

For whilst we discuss the trivial, real issues of basic services wither and die.

But people do care. Americans I have spoken to care.

Australians care, and enough of them will vote tomorrow Rudd who was the only leader to campaign on issues of day-to-day life. My prediction is now 54% to Rudd after preferences.

How about we send a message that Fear and Trivia don’t matter to us any more.

Take care it’s a jungle out there!

Christopher