I have friends in media and showbusiness, so I've seen these things from behind the scenes, and have a good feel for the dynamics. Media is about getting customers just like any other company, and their product is stories. They try to make these stories as appealing as possible, just like any other company tries to make the product their customers want.Truth plays second fiddle to a good story.
Oftentimes we think the media is engaged in a search for truth, justice and a real portrayal of how things work, but unfortunately that's not the how it is. They are there to sell you entertainment, and if the truth isn't sexy enough they'll pimp it up until it is. That's how it works.
On a broader note this is a huge problem for democracy - what we believe to be a guard against lies, bad politics and corruption is in reality just entertainment created by for-profit corporations with no interest in keeping a government honest or multinational corporations on the right side of the law. It's about business. Big business.
Reality TV is actually a dream business product for entertainment networks. This works on two levels - people are far more inclined to follow stories if they believe the characters are real. Great authors and storytellers have the skill to create 'real' sounding characters. Reality TV works on the assumption that the characters are real - skipping over the part where the writers have to skilfully create the characters. Thus you don't need many writers to come up with reality TV, just general plot points.
The second part is that the actors generally work for free, or close to free. This gets around pesky actors problems, such as unions, conditions and all the other things.
So you have people with a lower internal bar to 'believing' the stories and getting involved, and a cast that generally is working for free under conditions that would get regular actors up in arms.
The result is big profits for a successful reality TV show. The problem is that reality is rarely interesting outside a game show or contrived setup (ie survivor, biggest loser). So you get quasi-reality shows like Operation Repo which is completely acted following scripts but posing as reality, through the 'reality like' shows where real events are distorted to highlight the differences, right down to proper documentaries which try and follow the facts as blandly as possible. And the ratings will, other things being equal, be inversely proportionate to the amount of 'reality' in the show.
Bottom line : people who are to go on reality TV shows would do well to avail themselves of the facts before going in. Whether this means getting an agent or something like that, I don't know. But wishing and hoping for fair treatment is an unwise strategy.
(note: I'm addressing reality shows in general, not this specific example).
I believed they were asking me because they were looking out for me. </quote> from the article
> Oftentimes we think the media is engaged in a search for truth, justice and a real portrayal of how things work </quote>
I'm astonished that there are people who can think that at any age. Kids are either too young even to understand the concepts involved or too old to believe in Santa Claus. It might be culture-dependent.
Maybe I'm too naive in believing that somebody can sincerely write about the presumed right way good media should work.
It just takes a belief in common human decency and fairness. Not that unreasonable if you ask me. As she describes it, these producers are basically fraudsters, taking real events, warping them to fit their own desired story, and then portraying it as a real account of what happened. Fraud should not be considered the norm.
I agree from a moral point of view. But Nature doesn't know should or shouldn't it either is or is not. And it doesn't require many observations to see what the business practices in the media are.
It would be unusual to expect faithfulness from a prostitute; she doesn't make the rules.
It may be a local or even a global maxima for them, but I don't think it's inevitable, and I certainly don't think that it's a net positive for the country. I think they're creating huge negative externalities with their current mode of doing business. Regulation would be very tricky due to the whole freedom of speech, but maybe the Govt. could fund some higher quality competition to get the media focused on a less crappy MO.
I think this is a credible statement given that fact that participants didn't sign up for a reality TV show -- they signed up for a start-up incubator!
I wonder how much this quest for storylines has seeped into professional sports. It seems like more and more the NBA and NFL are manufacturing/assisting storylines rather than concerning themselves with the purity of competition.
It's probably bottom-up driven rather than top-down. The sports players see the trappings of notoriety (endorsements, media profiles, etc) which can mean, in some cases, bigger earnings than actually winning in the sport. Being merely good enough and having a big public persona can bring very good rewards.
It's all part of the current celebrity mania that has engulfed society. All you need is a hook to get into gossip magazines - once there, you can leverage yourself as much as you like, whether that is photo opportunities with orphans or passing out in front of nightclubs. I think the second-tier sports players would find that mightily attractive, because it's certainly harder to keep winning at the sport you're playing.
I'm referring more to the marquee players whom are in position to control the outcome of a game. Presumably directives would come from the owner and the deals would be made between individual teams and/or the league.
For example, owners might trade wins/losses now to help a storyline in exchange for markers for future wins when they're on a championship track.
If the NFL fixed a game then their would be issues in Las Vegas and DC because of the betting. beyond that, the damage done to their reputation would end the league.
Moreover there have been several politically-beneficial wins in the last 10 years -- the Patriots winning the Super Bowl after 911, the Saints winning it after Katrina, the Jets winning this year's Sunday night opener on the 10th anniversary of 911, in a metaphorical come-from-behind victory -- did you see how that game went down?
In the Jets game, Romo literally had to throw the game away in the 4th to lose it, and then his reputation was restored the next two weeks after two dramatic, media-hyped come-from-behind victories while playing with broken ribs and a punctured lung.
I've talked to many current and ex-NFL players at the gym and while the league has problems, fixing games is not one of them. When you're dealing at that level of talent small edges can mean big things. The emotional edge that one team has like in your examples can often push them to be just a bit better than other side. This is even more important when talking about a Super Bowl where both teams are evenly matched talent wise. In general the emotional/mental side of football is often way underrated.
Thing is, you show a couple of examples that are easily coincidences while there are many many counter examples. One big recent one is first super bowl in the new Texas stadium where the Cowboys were picked early season to go there and win. I don't even think they made the playoffs that year.
Nicolas Nassem Taleb, in either Fooled By Randomness or The Black Swan, opened my eyes to this. He was talking about the financial press. He gave an example of something that rose dramatically early in the day, and the news confidently offered an explanation, worries about X. Then it fell dramatically later in the day. The explanation? Worries about the same X.
I have friends in media and showbusiness, so I've seen these things from behind the scenes, and have a good feel for the dynamics. Media is about getting customers just like any other company, and their product is stories. They try to make these stories as appealing as possible, just like any other company tries to make the product their customers want.Truth plays second fiddle to a good story.
Oftentimes we think the media is engaged in a search for truth, justice and a real portrayal of how things work, but unfortunately that's not the how it is. They are there to sell you entertainment, and if the truth isn't sexy enough they'll pimp it up until it is. That's how it works.
On a broader note this is a huge problem for democracy - what we believe to be a guard against lies, bad politics and corruption is in reality just entertainment created by for-profit corporations with no interest in keeping a government honest or multinational corporations on the right side of the law. It's about business. Big business.