The Good with the Bad

Recently, as some of you may have noticed, I had a brief fit of journalistic frustration (which is like sexual frustration, except Brian Williams has experienced it) at the fact that CNN was running iReports on whether or not android songbird Rebecca Black was pregnant ("This report has not been vetted", noted the story, which is generally an indication that you should not run it). In this fit, I found myself doing something I don't remember ever doing, for multiple reasons: getting nostalgic about the '50s and '60s. Let me explain: yeah, if you were black/a woman/Jewish/Richie Cunningham's brother who mysteriously disappeared, they kinda sucked. But (I thought at the time) here's one thing they had on us: actual news was on the news and in the papers, and bullshit was in tabloids. But, as is usually the case with nostalgia, I soon remembered it wasn't that simple. Take Jack Kennedy; the guy had more girls on the side than a cannibal's buffet plate (albeit slightly less than Warren Harding, apparently), but the media wouldn't touch it. Seems cool at first, if you don't think anyone's consensual sexual activity is actual news (it isn't), but this seeming benefit is endemic of what was a serious problem of the era: the media of the time simply didn't scrutinize the president. While this isn't a problem when it comes to their private faults, it helped enable some of the worst transgressions of the Johnson and Nixon administrations. Woodward and Bernstein did a lot to prove that dirt-digging was not only permissible, it could be vital to the workings of democracy, but it wasn't until the Clinton administration that we really opened Pandora's box ("Pandora's Box" is a pornographic remake of "Avatar"). Clinton's Monicagate or whatever dumb name we've given it was the first time a man with Kennedy-esque proclivities had come to power in this era of increased media scrutiny, with the rich and famous no longer on pedestals. And agree or disagree on the whole thing, Clinton's investigation and impeachment wouldn't have been possible without the burgeoning internet. So here we had the people at the top finally being held to account, and regular people were involved. But here was the issue: it was over something completely trivial. In the modern era of online hyperconsciousness, things aren't much better. We've got access to more information than ever before but by and large, we'd rather use it for bullshit. The controversy over Time choosing Mark Zuckerberg over Julian Assange for their Man of the Year is emblematic of the two warring factions: would you rather have all the answers, even if they make you uncomfortable, or would you rather Poke someone? Here's the thing, though: that's a false choice. Yes, the modern world of information-sharing allows for way too much petty triviality to pass through, but it allows the things we need to know as well. I'll take a thousand Tweets about how good this sandwich is if it means one on-the-ground picture from the Jasmine Revolution. I guess what this whole piece comes down to is one question: is it worth having to extend Rebecca Black's fifteen minutes for a media apparatus that can truly watch the watchmen? And the answer is: oh, hell yes.