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Don't believe the media hype
By Emile Hallez
ehallez@mscd.edu

America, it is my sincere hope you are not as depraved as the media would have me believe.

Since John Mark Karr’s arrest Aug. 16 in Bangkok, television, radio, web pages and print have shed their thin exoskeletons of decency, exposing the repugnant flesh of sensationalism that lay below. If there is anything the newly-surfaced suspect in JonBenet Ramsey’s slaying has been good for, it’s mass-media material; he is the wet dream of every major network.

The mass exploitation of completely irrelevant information surrounding Karr can lead one to conclude that either 1) we delight in the debasement of pertinence, or 2) the media overestimate our appetites for such.

As much as I want to believe the latter, recalling the steady stream of yellow press that flowed after Dec. 25, 1996 makes me a little hesitant. It would be nothing new to say that we collectively sculpted the misfortune of a 6-year-old into a neatly packaged product, and in doing so elevated the deceased to iconic status. Nor would it be a fresh deduction to admit the case’s high profile. Almost ten years later, we were close to getting out of the muck. Have we learned nothing?
Media sensationalism is more than just an annoyance. It’s a symptom of a much deeper concern: our apathy. Whether or not one accepts informational offerings exuberantly or with complete disgust makes little difference. Polarization translates to absolute value in media success. If one objects to what they consume, yet continue to feast upon it, the product in question is justified. The quintessential method for killing an irritant’s longevity is to recognize it and then deprive it of attention. This is an active process, but an effective one.

The most detrimental effect that glorifying superficiality has on the world is detracting from what we should consider important. An Internet search for “John Karr” provides a surfeit of pages filled with the extraneous—the names of Karr’s parents, their wedding and divorce dates, and information about Karr’s high school and class standing are among a mountain of data unlikely to be useful to anyone. Why am I empty-handed after a search for tidings of any one of the 1,600 Lebanese civilians killed in the recent conflict with Israel?

JonBenet Ramsey was a child beauty queen. She was a member of white upper-class America. She was a human being—and we have a despicable habit of assigning values to human lives. Some are more important than others. What is shiny, flashy and in close proximity lures us as moths to the flame. When the less important are killed, we pay homage to their loss, thrown out as expediently as our kitchen trash.

I wonder how different the world might be should we give appropriate consideration to what is germane. JonBenet’s story is certainly relevant to the world; anytime life is unjustly taken, we should be outraged. So why do so many horrid transgressions fall beneath our radar?

Why would it matter to us if JonBenet were alternately the offspring of impoverished, unattractive immigrants? What would happen, should we become conscious that there exist names, faces, and intimate life stories for each of the 1,600 (and counting) civilians recently lain to rest on the other side of the Earth?

Perhaps we indulge the inexplicable. After all, no sane person can comprehend the motives behind the sexual assault and strangulation of a 6-year-old. With the prospect of a guilty entity on the horizon, our curiosity is perked like a tabby on catnip. Observing the right-minded kill is much less fun. When there is plausible motive, there is less for us to ponder.

Psychotic killers are incurable. Rational ones are not. When politicians give orders to take lives, we yawn or change the channel.

Little action has been taken to stop recent war crimes. Yet no impetus to do so is greater in its own merit than the wrongful taking of life. When Condoleeza Rice said we needed to wait for the dust to settle, we passively accepted. While Amnesty International blatantly accuses Israel, we are too busy drooling over a solitary madman to notice.

Fellow students, Denverites, and Americans, I implore you: have no patience for the gloss of sensationalism. When the Rocky Mountain News cannot sell newspapers just because it lazily slaps John Karr on the front page, he will be taken off it. Perhaps, though the stains will remain, we can wash away the bulk of our apathy.