Author: Brett Fujioka
I recall reading about Heath Ledger’s death and feeling a brief moment of passing sorrow. That was before I remembered that I didn’t know him personally and immediately got over it. What did annoy me, however, is that his death made the headline of CNN while there were bigger stories taking place both nationally and internationally.
I can already tell that the Weekly is going to receive several angry letters about how I have no right to say such things after the way he changed their lives in Brokeback Mountain and Brothers Grimm. Don’t get me wrong. Ledger’s death was tragic. It just shouldn’t take up the front headlines. He was just an actor and was in no position or place of power in which he changed the world for the better.
The same can definitely be said about Britney Spears, a very pregnant Jamie Lynn Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and countless other lack-wit celebrities. It never ceases to amuse me whenever Lohan gets drunk and does something stupid, but for goodness sake, it should not make the headlines. Nor should Britney Spears’s trashy nights of debauchery make the front page of several reputable newspapers. Do you know what would actually be news? I mean something quite new for journalists to report on? What would really be newsworthy-I mean something really new to the public-is if Lohan committed herself to a long stay in rehab, Britney finally got her act together and Paris Hilton actually remained chaste and got on that much-promised humanitarian mission she swore upon not long after leaving jail. I hate to lump Ledger among these wastrels, but his death should remain in the calendar section or detailed in length in the obituary-not the front page. There’s something disturbing when tabloids like The Sun, US Weekly and The National Enquirer bear a similar front page as the LA Times and New York Times.
A shining example of this same situation is in the deaths of Princess Diana and Mother Teresa. All Princess Diana did was touch an AIDS patient. In comparison, Mother Teresa actually worked in solitude with other countries stricken both by poverty and AIDS, and yet her death somehow got pushed so far back in the newspaper that I didn’t even know she died until several months after.
There’s something extremely wrong with this. Journalists, both past and present, should report on people who have actually done meaningful work instead of celebrities who just smile or screw up for the camera. There’s something wrong in the news world when tabloid journalism replaces actual journalism.
What journalists and editors need to do in light of this is learn how to say no. I know that these stories sell papers and magazines, but they need to take a stance of integrity and tell the world that this isn’t news. Readers will turn to other trashy tabloids and People magazine for their rumors and gossip concerning celebrities. News sources may lose ratings, money and readership by doing this, but at least they will retain their dignity and honor.
With this in mind, readers also have to say no. They somehow have to send a message to journalists that this rubbish shouldn’t take up the headlines. Write letters to news sources complaining about such nonsense. (Given that readers on an educated campus like Oxy can’t even muster the energy to write letters to the editor, this probably won’t happen). People need to stop reading this garbage.
Eventually, newspapers will pick up on this and return to more important matters. There are women and children dying in Darfur, soldiers perishing in Iraq and millions of people still displaced from Hurricane Katrina. That’s news. The death or flimsy scandal concerning someone with no political power or impact on the world should never take precedent over the issues that matter.
Brett Fujioka is a senior ECLS major. He can be reached at bfujioka@oxy.edu.
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