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Proper Media Training

Matt Bors
© Matt Bors

Just in case you don’t get it, this comic is making fun of CNN and their pitiful coverage of the missing flight in SE Asia. Or as New York magazine put it “CNN Gives Up, Wonders About Supernatural Conspiracy Theories for Flight 370 Disappearance“:

There’s only so much “breaking news.” After more than a week of wall-to-wall coverage on the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, much of it baseless speculation from vaguely defined experts, CNN today resorted to the most baseless of speculation from a certifiable non-expert about what “supernatural” or conspiratorial explanations there could be for the disappearance.

It must be tough to be a modern mainstream media journalist. You have to follow a tight script:

  1. Browse innertubes looking for interesting stories; find one
  2. Avoid any temptation to verify facts
  3. Evaluate interest:
    • Does it involve a celebrity doing something stupid or raunchy? +10
    • Will it upset any politicians or christians? –10
    • Will it upset any corporations? –5 ; Any that advertise with us? –15
    • Will it increase ratings? +15
    • Is it actually newsworthy? +1
  4. Find someone to interview about it, preferably someone who sounds controversial while not actually being controversial
  5. Beat the story to death until nobody is interested anymore
  6. Keep reporting on it anyway

And as long as everyone is piling on to CNN, we’ll let Jon Stewart have the hilarious last word:

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One Comment

  1. ebdoug wrote:

    The mudslide in Washington?

    The building blow up in NYC?

    The motel burning in NJ where four Sandy victims lost lives and the others lost everything again.

    Seems to me those are news stories to be followed and cried over and updated.

    Wednesday, March 26, 2014 at 4:54 am | Permalink