Everyone Loves a Good Scandal

Yesterday we started class by throwing out names of familiar political scandals since Watergate.  We were able to come up with a decent list, but it was far from extensive.  One look at our list and it was clear that the majority of recent scandals are sex scandals.

I did a bit of research myself, and came across ABC's Top 10 Political Scandals of the Decade (2009).  These 10 scandals included a few of the familiar scandals that landed on our list, but for the most part featured a whole bunch of scandals we did not even think of.  And these are just the decade's top 10.  I flipped through the scandals to see what genre the majority of the scandals fall into.  Not surprisingly, of the 10 scandals, 7 are sex scandals and only 3 are political in nature.

Well, I guess that's really what the public is interested in reading about.  Nothing sells newspapers like a good sex scandal!

The Role of the Youth in Egypt

As I blogged last week, there seems to be a decline in reading the news among the younger generation, myself included.  With this decline, according to Esther Thorson's "Mobilizing Citizen Participation," there will also be a decline in community involvement and an interest in politics and the being involved in the political process.  Therefore I find it fascinating that the uprising in Egypt was spearheaded by the youth, the very group that is supposed to be the least involved and interested in civil society.  Of course we cannot ignore the use of social media in Egypt and therefore one has to wonder if what Thorson argues is indeed the true future for the our generations and those that come after us.

No One Reads Anymore

I was recently surfing the web and came across an old article that quotes Steve Jobs speaking regarding the Kindle.  He provocatively states that “It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore.” Even though Jobs is speaking about the Kindle,  I believe we can apply this comment to the news as well.  Unfortunately, we all know that reading, especially the newspaper, is on the decline.  We are in an information age that gives us all the information we would ever think of ever wanting or needing and then some, and yet we are more ignorant today than our parents were when they were our age.  How could this be?  This is the unfortunate reality caused by the lack of interest in reading the news.  Today there are so many distractions that students simply neglect to follow the news. 

Why the Watchdogs Aren't Watching

In chapter 10 of our textbook, W. Lance Bennett and William Serrin argue that one of the reasons for a decline in the watchdog function of the press is because the public no longer frequently organizes in reform movements to obtain "good information" about the issues they care about and because the public views the press as too negative for their likings.  I think they neglected to mention the decline of the overall interest of the public to read the newspaper or watch the news.  In the absence of the public's interest for the news, it's no wonder why the journalists aren't putting forth their best foot in order to uncover the wrongs of society through painstaking investigative journalism.  We are at fault for the decline in the quality of our news.  If we would once again show a serious interest in obtaining the news, then perhaps the journalists would respond in kind with better investigations and once again serve as successful watchdogs.