Gottcha Journalism

This just in from the front page of  USA today dot com, a major newspaper both on and off line. I swear I read this on their front page.   It's "news" that Maine Governor Paul LePage denied that he said President Obama "hates white people." Haha What a foolish story for the front page of a newspaper.  "No, I never said that. And you guys are all about gossip," the governor said after reading the reports. We have a newspaper reporting a rumor of a racist comment, allegedly said during a fundraiser event for the governor,  according to two other politicians who claim that they had heard the remark..... strange.  And USA not only spreads hateful rumors, it doesn't identify the source because those who allege them "requested anonymity" for fear of political retribution.

Huh? Why would that major newspaper and most others print such gottcha remarks? The story quickly spread to many other newspapers and TV stations as well and by effect, has been elevated from cheap gossip to truth status.  Oh, wait! That seems to be the norm in modern day journalism.  In order to win the ratings game and sell more, news sources now behave like anonymous bloggers spewing forth unsubstantiated garbage instead of factual reports. That story is just one of hundred similar gottcha stories by the news media, both print and air, that I have seen this year. They are stories that attack a person  (in this case both governor LePage and President Obama are smeared by the story) without verification, seem to have no point beyond shock value, and distract the public from reading or viewing real news by wasting time and energy on stupidity.

USA Today and the rest should be ashamed of printing gossip as news, and even more so by elevating the gossip to front page status. Uh...... don't even think that USA Today will retract and apologize if the story is false. That never happens in this age of journalism that values the speed of the report over the veracity of it.  News outlets more often throw bombs today and then leave the scene. Responsibility and accountability from them is rare.

Humans everywhere seem less informed about important events in their community and world than ever before. It's partly because news outlets have become supermarket gossip rags as much as serious news outlets. The reliable news source is a dying species. And the worst aspect to the waste of time and attempts to slander or embarrass is that many journalists make the "gottcha story" their prime methodology. The "let's see who I can embarrass today" method has grown and grown, pushing real news out of the spotlight and making it easier to fool the public about serious matters by distracting it from the important.

Sad to say, the media keeps these idiotic kinds of stories in the forefront because gossip and sensationalism sells news. But what does that say about the fact that we readers and viewers don't demand more from them? Maybe that is the biggest story of all.