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The News Media and it's Infatuation With Angels and Miracles

O

OGjimkenobi

New Member
arg-fallbackName="OGjimkenobi"/>
I recently made a video about angels and the common belief that they have some level of involvement in our lives here on Earth. In order to make the video I had to do a bit of research on the subject and by the time I was finished one thing was abundantly clear to me, the freaking news media is obsessed with them.

Now if we are going to be adult about this, then we know that of course their are no angels or miracles and only small children actually believe in such things. And yet the media time and time again treats reported stories of such things as though the involvement of an angel is a truly viable possibility, as though there is a good chance that a positive outcome to a potentially tragic situation could have been the result of angelic intervention.

When can we stop being childish about shit like this? If you want to talk about angels and unicorns that's fine, but do it where it belongs, like preschool for example.

What do you guys think? Should the media be presenting supernatural occurrences as a possible credible explanation for the outcome of a news event?

And also, considering that there is almost always a much more likely and logical explanation for these types of events, why do news outlets so readily feed into sensationalizing the story by promoting a fictional concept as "news"?




Here is a link to the video project I was researching for.

 
arg-fallbackName="Sparky"/>
It is ridiculous that the media would report angels/supernatural explanations for events that seem extraordinary. However, we must remember that the media is looking to get as many viewers as possible so one might put the populace as the cause of this. If no one wanted to see how a supposed angel cured a little girl - they wouldn't show it.

I can't remember any instances of this sort of thing happening in New Zealand but that said 4 out of 10 people didn't subscribe to any religion in the last census so I guess we are a relatively atheistic country. In the good old US of A this report may well entice viewers due to the high proportion of religious people in the country.

Someone correct me if I'm way off the true explanation but this seems a reasonable conclusion to me from the evidence I have and my knowledge of business and of the psychology of people.
 
arg-fallbackName="ImprobableJoe"/>
It is a cheap story to do. You don't have to do any research, you barely have to do any preparation. You send out a junior producer to stick a camera in front of a couple of people who say "angels" and "miracles", write a little something to say back at the studio, and you've killed 4 minutes on a slow news day.
 
arg-fallbackName="Aught3"/>
A lot of the time I think it is probably just to save space. For example, the 'Hudson Miracle' probably should have been called 'Skilled Pilot Ditches Plane in Hudson River' but that's way to long for copy editors.

I know this explanation doesn't cover all cases though.
 
arg-fallbackName="ebbixx"/>
Aught3 said:
A lot of the time I think it is probably just to save space. For example, the 'Hudson Miracle' probably should have been called 'Skilled Pilot Ditches Plane in Hudson River' but that's way to long for copy editors.

I know this explanation doesn't cover all cases though.
Click to expand...

OR, it's just Gresham's Law as applied to news media?

In other words, fanciful, cheap and meaningless (but appealing) news drives out good (well-done, careful, analytical and ultimately boring to 80 percent of the audience used to the debased stuff) news.

Maybe Gresham's Law should be renamed Murdoch's Law?
 
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