Tully's Letters

A continuation of a long-time tradition here at S&J, started by Paul Tully — the Wise Guy at Smith & Jones, our mentor and a very special friend.

Normally, I’m a fairly harsh critic of the way mainstream American news organizations report the news. I often find that they over-dramatize rather than simply report the facts, and to combine two clichés, weekly/daily/hourly beat the proverbial dead horse to a pulp.

They seem to grab hold of the smallest stories and spend a tremendous amount of energy trying to make them big stories. Dramatic reporting, slick video and graphics often overshadow the story itself, because the story is not very newsworthy. I think the idea is if we brand it, people will buy it. Forget the truth, this is show business.

Last night, when I got home, I turned on the television to be greeted with the new story “Massacre at Virginia Tech.” To be honest, the reporting was better than I have seen in a long time. Somber, understated, respectful. The newscasters were not smiling while they were reporting about a very terrible event. This was unusual.

In contrast, the newscast was branded, complete with a logo, tag line, graphics package and station promos featuring graphic photos including one of a woman’s bullet riddled body.

It was as if the new program’s marketing people felt that thirty two innocent people shot on a college campus by a troubled kid with a semi-automatic pistol that was, just until recently, banned for sale in fear this would happen was not dramatic enough. They had to brand it.

As a branding specialist, I find this deeply disturbing. 

Posted at 9:00 am by mshipley    1 Comment