Newspapers / University of North Carolina … / Feb. 22, 2012, edition 1 / Page 11
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Campus \bice 2222011 I The Blue Banner I 11 MEDIA continued from page 13 sip that sells. Except for the actual cause of her death, people in media now reflect on more detailed circumstances. Who moved the body before the ambulance arrived? And more impor tantly, who is leaking pictures of the hotel room, the bathtub and the body bag? I wonder why it matters at this point. The only function this fuss seems to have is that it satisfies the viewers’ curios ity in an entertaining and dramatic way. A show host said the leaked pictures have a ’’voyeuristic aspect” - people feel the need to see what hap pened. So, why do journalists give the audience what it wants in this case? The journalist encounters many other challenges too, since it’s his or her job to inform the readers or view ers about things of concern. In what way is the death of Houston our concern? Well, she was a public fig ure, but that probably doesn’t uiean that we have to know all Stars who lived and died in the spotlight • Whitney Houston (Feb. 11) • Elizabeth Taylor (March 23,2011) ‘ Amy Winehouse (July 23,2011) • Steve Jobs (Oct. 5,2011) • Michael Jackson (June 25,2009) • Farrah Fawcett (June 25,2009) Compiled by Alicia Adcox these over-dramatized details. One could also argue that the supply is created by the demand. As readers we tend to enjoy tragedies, as long as it doesn’t concern our own family. I’m asking myself why a journalist with any kind of respect for professional ethics would let himself or herself be affected by what the audience wants. Again, it’s all about the money. Someone even took the time to interview Houston’s makeup artist and ask ques tions about whether he had noticed anything special when he met Houston two nights before her death. Another surprising inter viewee was Anna Nicole Smith’s ex-boyfriend. Smith died of an overdose of pre scription drugs in 2007. What does Smith’s ex have to do with the death of Houston? Not that much, except he knows what it feels like to lose a famous girlfriend. Or in this case, ex-girlfriend. The two ladies did perhaps have a few things in common, and they both lived turbulent lives with sad endings. It almost seems like the me dia outlets are competing to make the most creative inter views with the most random people, and who comes up with the most original angle to their stories. This is of course part of the journalist’s job too, but in a case like this, I wouldn’t mind seeing some more delicacy. As always when a celebrity dies, magazines .and websites take the chance to write about everything that has anything to do with the deceased. Her life in pictures, Her most memorable looks, Famous friends say their goodbyes and other headlines. These stories are a nice way to remember a deceased star, but a few of them seem to contribute little to the actual news story. The world just lost a great singer, and one thing is for sure: the media will use this tragedy until every juicy drop is squeezed out of it. With all the interesting things Houston said, did and even wore, there are many angles you can adapt to her death. It’s going to take a long time for the media to forget this story. RACE continued from page 13 motives. The moment the words, “So tell me how you know your friend,” exited the officer’s mouth, I immediately knew this was a race issue. The officer proceeded to ask me personal questions about mine and his relationship, how we met and how long we had known each other. When my answers weren’t sufficient, he asked my friend the same ques tions to make sure our answers matched up. I’ve always experienced some prejudice because I am Jewish, but I had never experienced such racism before. To have first-hand experience of such judgment shifts every nerve inside you and changes the way you perceive race rela tions. The trend reported by Pew and highlighted by the Loving case will become even more evident in the years to come as the younger generation becomes more accustomed to other races than their elders, feeling less constrained about who they love. MARKET continued from page 13 almost a grand and a half, then fi ll probably end up discon- linuing its service within three years. Older laptops have much fiiore stability in the quality of Iheir service. Sure they might be bigger I find heavier, but you can trust i your dad’s 1999 Toshiba over a ! 2008 Dell any day. Katy Perry is the epitome of Ptesent-day pop music. Singing fibout California girls and steal ing liquor out of her parent’s Cabinet seems to be the current ^fige. The electronic beats and fiuto-tune sync out any chance of hearing what the singer actu- filly sounds like. Trance, house find club music are made of boats because that is the genre of the music; music on the ra- ifio should hold more elements than that. The lyrics of the music heard Tupac is turning in his grave as we let these artificial rappers control the hip-hop scene. on the radio can be used as a good laughing mechanism. A man singing about catch ing a grenade for his girlfriend would spark some sort of psychotic help to a normal listener, but instead, jumping in front of a train really means going platinum four times in the United States. What’s even better is the present day so-called rappers. A song literally made up of the word, “ass” repeated 101 times landed a spot on radio stations for one too many weeks. Tupac is turning in his grave as we let these artificial rappers control the hip-hop scene. If people ever want to blame hip-hop for anything, now’s the time to do it. It should truly be a crime to sing about women and how low they can drop anything. Rappers such as Immortal Technique and Damien Marley don’t make mainstream media because the quality of their music would take away from what society wants to hear, a wide spectrum of filth. The quality of music has gone down. Anyone and their mother can produce a song. You don’t even have to be a real singer, just have a video camera and a YouTube account and you’ll end up in the hands of Simon Cowell with your own record deal. Last but certainly not least, we have the very flimsy quality of clothing. While being a hipster is the new norm, clothing companies such as Urban Outfitters really know how to bum a hole in someone’s pocket. The worst part is, undergrads will go ahead and purchase the $40 T-shirt that is almost identical to the one you can get in a bin at Rite Aid and no one says anything about it. Sure the jewelry from For ever 21 might be cute but don’t be fooled by the ring that’s only $7.99; it’ll break within two months. Although this might be cheap and one can only expect some thing so cheap to break sooner rather than later, companies should provide more quality in their production. Money obsession is at its highest peak. Companies don’t have a problem generating child labor camps around the world to produce their products faster and cheaper. More importantly, we are the consumers feeding into the mess of it all. We consumers are frantically spending money on items we’ll probably never need. We are a ‘fast paced’ society. We need things completed in the speed of a microwave dinner. We should demand more quality in everything we see, hear, touch and feel. As the main buyers who subcon sciously support major corpo rations, we have the ultimate right to know what we’re buy ing, watching and using.
University of North Carolina at Asheville Student Newspaper
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