Comments by Scoper...

ELIAN DU JOUR

Wait!  Don't go!  This is not really about Elian Gonzalez.  Or JonBenet, or JFK Jr., or Princess Di, or Tonya Harding, or OJ.  You already know just about everything that you care to know about all those people.  Or do you?  Or should you?  That's sorta-kinda my point. 

The modern version of the "chicken or the egg" question is:  "do the media reflect society, or does society change to fit the media picture of it?"  Brace yourself: the answer is "yes."  How's that?  Well, the two are not mutually exclusive, and really never have been.

Ideally, the media (TV, radio and print here, I can get several more columns out of movies alone) gather facts about what's happening in the world around us, then report them to you and me.  But there's a truism in physics that nothing can be measured without, in some way, changing what is being measured. 

(Quick example: if you plop a thermometer into a glass of water, all you can do is measure the temperature of the water with the thermometer in it.  If the thermometer is warmer or colder than the water, it will impart that difference to the water, and you can't correct for that because you didn't know what the water temperature was in the first place until you tried to measure it, which changed the temperature of the water!  And this assumes your thermometer is accurate to begin with!)

I submit to you that the relentless media bombardment of stories about all the people I mentioned above has changed your perceptions about the facts in each case, and is in large part responsible for your opinions on each of those issues, opinions formed on the basis of sound-bytes, video clips, or a newspaper headline or magazine cover. 

In the New York Times recently, Frank Rich passed along a question from actor Nathan Lane:  "Now if (Elian) wasn't so adorable, do you think there'd be such a dilemma?"  Hmm.  JonBenet was adorable, Di was beautiful, Tonya (in her better moments) was at least cute, and even OJ (aside from one particular magazine cover) was generally considered a good-looking guy before he was characterized as Satan incarnate.  (Stop.  Turn off your e-mail machine.  I, too, think OJ did it.)

So why do the media now move from one fixation to another?  That's an easy one to answer: because people eat it up.  And the more they get, the more they want.  OJ alone kept us occupied for most of two years. 

And here's the dirty little secret of the news media, and the answer to why their offerings are now as much entertainment as any other programming.  They might merchandise others' misfortunes, but they don't sell you the news, they sell their advertisers an audience.  YOU are the commodity, and your demographics (age, sex, income, buying patterns) have been in various databases for quite some time now. 
This is this the whole point of "ratings," and it's at least one reason why this week it's "all Elian, all the time," and why this sad soap-opera goes on, and on, and on.

In that sense, it's not little Elian who's being bought and sold here; he's merely another catalyst (though, among the U.S. government, anti-Castro relatives, incessant news coverage and the soon-to-come TV movies, he's certainly been sickeningly exploited.) 

But that exploitation could not occur - at least not at this level - without a huge, wide audience.  Am I furthering that exploitation by posting this essay on an Internet site?  Yes, I probably am.  Does that make me part of the problem?  Yes, I'd say it does. 

OK, this was a little bit about Elian.  But at least I took it in another direction; one that I'm hoping you'll spend a moment or two considering. 

It's what we in the media call a "developing story."  By the time you read these words, the Elian saga might well have faded, or possibly might be propped up on life-support while the 24-hour news cycle waits to jump to the next "cause celebre'.  Doesn't matter: plenty more stories where that little boy came from.  And you'll watch, and you'll listen, and you'll read.  And reluctantly, I admit, so will I.
 

Hey, we know!
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