What’s wrong with journalism

As a journalism major and an idealist, I prefer a certain level of professionalism and class in my news coverage. I like a person like Anderson Cooper, who covers important issues well and actually cares about those issues and confronts the responsible (or irresponsible) parties – see his coverage of Hurricane Katrina for an example.\nThis is also the reason why I cannot stand the television existence of Glenn Beck or Nancy Grace.\nIn case you are not aware, Beck and Grace exist as an unholy four-hour block on CNN Headline News. Beck is evidently a conservative talk-radio host as well, though I’ve never really made it far enough into his TV show to know his views on anything other than yelling. He’s in favor of it. He covers the most pressing issues, like how evidently Chuck Norris is endorsing Mike Huckabee for president. \nGrace, on the other hand, should, in theory, be a bit more legitimate. She’s a former prosecutor, though it seems she wasn’t even good at that. She broke into television via CourtTV and moved on to her current show on Headline News, where she takes a self-described victims’-rights standpoint. \nI, on the other hand, would describe her standpoint as sensationalist and annoying. The show is sensationalist because its primary focus is not a rational and weighted commentary on the legal news of the day, but stories on crazy, unusual crimes which usually involve children, some kind of sexual predation or unusual murder. It’s annoying because, among other reasons, the headlines used on the screen during the show have exclamation marks – and if there’s one thing that just screams “journalistic integrity,” it’s an exclamation mark.\nThere’s a lot wrong with journalism in the United States today. The free press is supposed to act as a check on the government by keeping the people informed and investigating things that those in charge may not want us to know. Instead, the press has lost its focus to a certain extent. It’s no fun to have to go back to this again, but if in 2003 the press had been paying attention, there wouldn’t have been nearly as much popular support for the Iraq War. If the press had done its job, the war may not have happened.\nHowever, the media is fixated on trivialities, and Beck and Grace represent everything wrong with it. Their yelling and exclamation marks are representative of the sensationalism that has gripped the press so much recently that it reminds one of Hearst and Pulitzer. Of course things like the war and global warming get coverage, but it hurts to see that same space also occupied by my favorite examples of irresponsible journalism – Anna Nicole Smith and Britney Spears. Even when the right topics get covered, it seems like it’s done with a sensationalist’s eye. \nThe next time I want to hear about a baby on cocaine, I’ll look to Ms. Grace.But to find legitimate news, I guess I’ll have to work a bit harder.