Dear News Media,
I am not stupid. I am not that ignorant of how the world works. I can understand fairly complex scenarios, even those that include what may appear to be morally ambiguous characters. I can understand that good people do bad things sometimes, and that this doesn’t necessarily mean that they are bad people. I don’t need you to label every individual according to some weird moral code that you’ve made up and that you think I agree with. I don’t want you to give criminals cool nicknames. I don’t want you to document in meticulous detail each move of a clearly mentally unsound person who stalks a school killing people. I don’t wan’t you to provide 24 hour coverage of not-very-much-happening in the hunt for so-and-so. It doesn’t make me feel safe or even sane! I don’t need you to label every “controversy” in the same banal manner; Wagergate was fine, but Cowengate, Bigotgate, Climategate, Monotonous-Idiotic-Storygate? How does that help? Why would that make a news story easier to understand or more accurate? The only thing it does is create a bizarre narrative that makes it appear that all the stories are connected somehow, and all that does is make me think that the whole bloody world is immoral and out to get me and lie to me and deceive me!
I also don’t care what your readers think. Now, don’t get me wrong – I think user-generated content can be exceptionally powerful. When the news cameras can’t get to a scene in time, or when an individual captures something really amazing, the story is really improved. However, why the hell would I care what James, 32, from Donnybrook thinks about NAMA? Is that really going to help my knowledge of a very complex issue? I don’t care about Joe the Plumber, the motorway man, the soccer mum. What does that add to the narrative?
So that’s me. Don’t give me stupid names for the people you’re reporting on. Don’t make me feel stupid by giving every story the suffix “gate”. And please, I don’t pretend to be a journalist. Don’t pretend that the random vox-pop punters have wildly important things to say.
Thanks,
Conor