Ethical Media (cough cough)

Even knowing that the media controls what we see (and how we see it) did not prepare me for this article. Obviously, some different standards (from what one would hope) are in play out in medialand:

"Politics in France is heading to the right and I don't want rightwing politicians back in second, or even first place because we showed burning cars on television,"

The issue internal to the French media is bad enough to read, but the real show-stopper (to me) came at the end of the article:

John Ryley, the executive editor of Sky News, said his channel would have handled a similar story in Britain very differently.

"We would have been all over it like a cheap suit. We would have monstered the story, and I didn't get the impression that happened in France," he said.

So okay – I’m not a journalist… but let me see if I get this. To monster something seems to mean "blow it up huge so it takes over the airwaves". The "cheap suit" phrase says "cheap tabloid journalism" to me. (Is Sky News a tabloid? How lucky for Britain!)

I wonder if I can apply this newly acquired jargon correctly.

Do you think the media monstered the story about murdered babies and rapes in the Superdome? Were they all over it like a cheap suit? Or maybe instead, everybody except the French monstered the Paris riots? (with the obvious problematic conclusion being: how would we know, anyway?)

How’d I do? Did I get the terminology right?

Unbelievable. Truth in media.

Polimom said this @ 2:02 PM