Last week in my English class we began a discussion about what makes a good citizen. You may have read my previous blog and seen my somewhat inadequate attempt to articulate what I thought was a good citizen. While we were flushing out traits of good citizens, I came across an article online that said that the Good Rev. Fred Phelps was going to be protesting the funeral of Heath Ledger.
For those who don't know about Phelps, his group -- the Westboro Baptist Church -- visited Creighton University earlier this year to protest the showing of "The Laramie Project." "The Laramie Project" is about a college student named Matthew Shepard who was killed in Laramie, Wyoming due to his sexual orientation. Phelps believes that it is biblically wrong to support homosexual rights, and as a result God hates America.
Because Ledger starred in the 2005 film Brokeback Mountain, and the movie touched on topics of homosexuality, the WBC felt the need to protest his memorial service.
What I am having a hard time grappling with is that Phelps fits my definition for a good citizen. In his mind he has educated himself and through decision and action is working to try and better his society. Granted many of the constructs of the society in his head are contradictory to what everyone else in the world believes, but that's beside the point.
I had a discussion with a friend from back home and we were discussing action. From my God and Person's class I was able to raise the following questions.
If someone performs the right action with the wrong intentions, is it still the right action?
If someone performs the wrong action with the right intentions, is it still the wrong action?
In my mind, Phelps is not only exercising his First Amendment right to protest, but he is going out and trying to live his faith as much as possible. Granted his mind is skewed so that it subsists completely in a world of hate, but he's living his faith. Do we then criticize for it being the wrong faith?
After much thought and deliberation I have decided that a good citizen is an individual who through education, decision, and action participates in the betterment of society. Action in order to be effective must be the result of a thought out decision balancing personal values of ethos, pathos and logos.
I had a long discussion last night. She stopped by to console my roommate about the loss the Packers had suffered just minutes earlier, and unfortunately he was not in. As a result, I had the conversation about football, Tony Romo, Jessica Simpson, and how it is unfair that the media will not let poor Jessica or Tony have a minute of peace. Those terrible, terrible paparazzi.
The discussion became heated when my resident mentioned how the media is to blame for many problems with priorities in society. She pointed to the Jessica and Tony example and said that the media is to blame for making a bigger deal about the story than it deserves. My refute to her contentions will be the subject of my blog for the week.
The blog doesn't necessarily directly deal with rhetoric in ethics by the media, but hopefully by collecting my thoughts on media ethics and using this post as a spring board, I will be able to delve more deeply into the subject later in the semester.
What is news? Who decides what news is? I decide what news is. You decide what news is. The media serves as a kind of looking glass for the public. They show America what America wants to see. The consumer is all powerful and in charge, and this is scary. The fact that something is deemed newsworthy by the amount of advertising that can be sold during the program is somewhat unnerving. Shame on media outlets for letting the industry degrade from the standard set by Edward Murrow, a man who did not care what his advertisers thought. A man who knew the implications of what he was reporting and reported anyway.
Yet when pointing the finger of blame, three other fingers of blame point the other direction. The greatest weapon that the American public has against what my resident considered poor taste in news is the remote control. Or a different news outlet. After Anna Nicole Smith died, I didn't feel that she deserved all the news coverage that she got. I mean for real? She got her own graphic. That's excessive. Therefore, when CNN went around the clock with news coverage about her death, I turned the television off.
I'm sure for some people, though, Anna Nicole Smith's death was huge news. They lost a role model, or their favorite porn star. Not my place to judge. But nonetheless they tuned in to around-the-clock coverage.
Same can be said for Brittney's fall from grace, or LiLo's in and out of rehab, or Paris' drunken escapades. I worked at Entertainment Tonight over the summer. I watched the drama unfold. Most of the crew on the show really didn't care for the subject matter that they put on the air. However, the 18-49 year-old market of women cared about the show. Those viewers decided that Entertainment Tonight was newsworthy.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that if nobody watched the coverage of non "newsworthy" events, the media would stop covering them. It would no longer be profitable, and we could live in a society with decent priorities. Unfortunately, people will not take this responsibility, and rather just blame the media without an introspection first. Shame on you all. Like Harry Truman said, the buck stops here. Or maybe it will keep on paying for more trashy television. Fight on Jessica and Tony Romo. Watch your backs because we're watching them too. The media is going to keep showing them because there is something about your back that is just so much fun to watch.
I was watching the Nevada Democratic caucus on CNN today and they cut live to the inside of Caesar's Palace caucus. I just found it interesting that when they were announcing the results, the announced names were Senator Obama and Hillary. If my memory is correct, Senator Clinton has been serving the United States longer than Senator Obama has been. Don't know whether this is a subconscious sexist ideal, or whether we are just more comfortable with one candidate that we feel we can call her by her first name.
... or continues if you will. My inspection of ethical use of rhetoric in the media is probably not the first nor the last look that someone will take on the subject. Hopefully this gives me some sort of justification for the endless hours I spend online, or at the very least it gives me a forum to share stories from my experiences at Entertainment Tonight last summer. Let's get down to business. It's business time.
