News as a spectator sport
With cable channels so accessible, we know what’s going on in other parts of the world, especially in its media capital which is the USA. Maybe if we spoke French or German beyond “where is the nearest subway?” we would also tune in on Europe.
The media coverage of the recent US elections kept us glued to TV and Internet as the electoral votes were racking up. What we know about the world is based on foreign news coverage. Because of the limitation on language and maybe common interests, our attention (maybe even obsession) focuses on America making us faux experts on what is happening there. Our knowledge is filtered by the biases and political leanings of the commentators and media outlets that we watch. Might we feel ready to be talking heads and instant resource persons ourselves spouting second-hand knowledge and analysis, at least around the dining table? Such immersion in the news and opinion cycles of another country can be a viable consulting niche to answer with recycled and opinions such burning issues like the fate of local BPOs in a more protectionist America and the first hundred days of a new President (the other one). It’s becoming conventional wisdom to expect a metamorphosis from the hate-mongering candidate to the pragmatic businessman in office becoming more moderate and centrist. Remember that false hope? How quickly you forget.
Following the news has become a spectator sport. You don’t like that raspy heavily accented voice in the local news? Switch to the other team led by someone with a more interesting hairdo. As in sports there are in the news villains and heroes, unforced errors (did you need to curse him too?), and cheering squads, as well as a stunning upset of the favored team.
It is not mere curiosity that engages us to follow crises and events around the world like a meteorologist tracking typhoons and their expected landfall. We excuse this trivial pursuit by telling ourselves that what happens in the world somehow has an impact on us. This helps us feel engaged in what’s going on in Thailand too. It makes our appreciation of tom yum more contexted.
But nothing seems to excite us more (I speak here for myself) than the election process in the United States, even if this is over and the talking heads are now figuring out where the polls went wrong.
Gaining knowledge through television coverage with the medium’s penchant for sound bites simplify, if not, distort complicated issues. (Aren’t all world issues complicated?) This is no different from acquiring literary appreciation from watching movie versions of books without needing to read the original. Okay, maybe “Lolita” in the movies may be more interesting than reading Nabokov’s tale of a middle-aged man’s fascination with a girl licking a lollipop. It’s sugar-free.
Can we really understand world politics from following the media coverage of it, even if religiously? At best, televised commentaries on international events provide the same entertainment value as a tennis game where players are given personalities and styles to differentiate them from one another. The Trump phenomenon is a natural melodrama complete with unexpected comments involving hand sizes and where those hands can go.
International news channels occasionally include unimportant countries like ours to justify their world coverage, and Asia-wide reach. Globally, our role as a worthy news topic involves mayhem events such as extrajudicial killings, typhoon ravages, and speech patterns.
As mere viewers of world news, we can exhibit emotional highs and lows at the international turn of events and then grow weary of political figures in distant time zones. (It’s not our country.) Our interest flags when the supporting cast is introduced and too many experts join the fray. Besides, that contest is over.
We wander back to familiar local news as we struggle with more recognizable situations like a jail rubout, the burial of 27-year-old remains, and the length of the VP’s skirt.
True citizens with single passports like us are exposed to real life as news, or news as real life. Events at home are seen through one’s car windows when stuck in traffic due to some nearby incident being broadcast live. There is no option of turning off the event with a remote control switch or even bringing down the sound.
When news is local and live, you can’t switch channels to something less violent… and there are no commercial breaks.
We excuse the habit of tracking news by telling ourselves that what happens in the world somehow has an impact on us.