Here's a quick quiz: Who are your two United States senators? Here's another: Who won the Heisman in 2005? And another: What does Brangelina mean?
If you're like most people, you can answer the last two questions, but maybe not the first. Although this is less common on college campuses, people care more about celebrities, fashion or sensationalist news such as Natalee Holloway's disappearance than about real news, like genocide in Darfur or why we're in Iraq.
However, it may not be your fault. Blame it on the media: Reggie Bush, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have received much more publicity than John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison. You can't stub your toe without hearing about Kate Moss's cocaine usage. There's a book out about Natalee Holloway.
With such skewed media priorities, it is no small wonder that much of the United States remains uninformed and ignorant. Our world is one of infotainment - Brangelina and football sell more papers than Cornyn and Hutchison (unless one of them has recently embezzled money or killed someone while driving drunk).
People like to be entertained - it's one of the driving forces of humanity. People pay attention to things they find interesting. The challenge is to get them to find politics as interesting as celebrities. Infotainment sort of does this, but instead of making important news interesting, they take pictures of Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt.
Is it consumers' fault for not caring about the news, therefore causing the media to publish what sells? Or do people not care about the news because it's not as easily accessible? It's probably a little of both.
The media needs a makeover, although instead of adding couture, highlights and some Chanel sunglasses, it needs to strip them away. Infotainment and celebrity coverage are not bad things, nor do they need to disappear. They have their place, and that place has expanded far beyond where it should be.
The media are how people communicate and reach each other, especially around the world. Most people will never go to Iraq, so they rely on the media to tell them what's going on. Same with Darfur. Same with Washington, D.C. But if the media rarely covers these incidents, the public is left ignorant and unable to take action against policies they do not like or help people around the world.
On the other hand, our busy lives leave us much less willing to spend time and energy reading the news when we'd much rather relax. Being informed takes effort, so many people opt out, or go to CNN.com and read the homepage. But CNN.com's stories are guilty of infotainment, too: While there is a headline reading "Children among 40 killed in Baghdad 'massacre,'" the headline next to it reads, "Why, Dave, why? CNN's Anderson Cooper talks to Dave Chappelle about his decision to leave his hit show."
It doesn't have to be a one-way street, with the media trickling down to the apathetic public whatever tidbit sells papers. If consumers show more interest in real news, the media will cover more real news, and vice versa. But, unless the media decides to make a massive reformation, it's up to the consumer to make the effort to be informed about issues that change people's lives.
Acker is an English and rhetoric senior.
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