Ratings Vampires Invade Rio

The media is an interesting entity.  On one hand, they report the happenings of our world to help us stay in the awareness loop.  On the other, more and more they seem to spin and perpetuate events, becoming the ones who are actually creating some of the very news they then repackage to report to us.

The “Special Edition”

We’ve seen it happen multiple times, though may not always realize it.  It has happened with severe weather monitoring.  About 5 years ago in the northeast we experienced the triple wammy of a tornado, a hurricane, and an autumn snowstorm all occurring within a few months of each other.

The news gave us around the clock coverage, with these weather events being their leading story for days during each one.  It ended up being a huge ratings spike for them given everyone in suspense, waiting to know what to expect.  Each would title their broadcast as a “special edition” to alert the public that this was something important to watch.

Soon however, every regular windy, rainy, and snowy day became a “special edition”.   I’m sure each received high ratings.  Until they gradually became the network who cried wolf.  Before long, we desensitized and began to barely notice these special alert coverage days.

The “Breaking News”

Though I hesitate to use it, I think further back to 9/11 as another example of an authentic event teaching media what type of coverage gets ratings.  As a country, we all appreciated the breaking news coverage as well as the continuous updates to keep us informed about the unfolding discoveries of one of our countries most horrific historic events.  It was a fork in a road that changed how safe many of us felt from then on.

It seemed in the years that followed, the news began showing us more and more hair-raising tragedies occurring around the world.  Were they happening more often?  Maybe.  Was it happening the same amount but media was now covering it more?  Maybe.  Were they doing it because 9/11 opened our eyes that we weren’t as protected in our North American bubble as we thought we were?  Maybe.  Or was it happening because the media outlets learned that viewership goes up when drama unfolds?

Did they learn, from a few authentic events, a template  to increase ratings?   Did they learn how to fit all controversial events they could find into a “can‘t lose” “breaking news” strategy?  And have they begun to feed us a diet of negative-emotion provoking stories in order to keep us tuned in?  If we are kept afraid or kept on the hook to learn how an emotional controversy ties up it’s loose ends, do we become their permanent audience?

It’s Newest Face

This topic is not one I would usually choose for this blog.  However, my being glued to the television these past sixteen days watching the Olympics brought this concept into the forefront of my mind.  (If you’ve been reading anything from my site during the past couple weeks, you knew this had to be tied to the Olympics, right?)

NBC is the channel usually on at my house.  If our television was a couch,  NBC would be the indented bum area that shows where “my spot” is.  So I was glad to see it was my Today show cast who would be there covering my much anticipated Olympics.  But watching it so consistently, I started noticing some cracks in the un-biased coverage I had grown to expect and rely on.

Lochte:  Bad Boy of the Rio Olympics or Media Ratings Victim?

Bring on Ryan Lochte.  The bad boy of USA Olympic swimming in comparison to Phelps’ golden boy image.  No one is ever surprised to hear a story about him engulfed in shenanigans.  Heck, we had already heard about his Tinder profile from the Olympic village just a few days ago.  

Let’s be honest.  We females may want to marry the Michael Phelps, but not until we’ve dated the Ryan Lochte.  He’s the bad-boy rock-star of the games,  and who isn’t interested in a rock star?

After a late night of celebrating out with some swim teammates, Lochte was on the beach in Rio the next morning telling some friends about an incident the during his previous evening’s escapades .  Like most young people retelling a story to friends, he embellished some of the details. 

But it happened to be overheard by one of the NBC journalists, Billy Bush, who went in closer to hear more.  Before Lochte knew it,  Bush had his cameraman, who happened to be with him, record an impromptu interview of Ryan re-telling the story to Billy.

Before Long, NBC aired it on a Today show segment.  Uproar immediately ensued since the story included an account of being robbed at gunpoint on the streets of Rio.  This uproar over Lochte, the victim, quickly turned to one of him as villain as extra details soon came out.

Be Careful How You Chose Your Words

Apparently, they hadn’t been pulled over at a gas station, they had been confronted there after pulling down a metal-framed poster on the wall and urinating on some plants.  A gun was then pulled on them by men with badges, and they were told the only way they would be allowed to leave without the police being called was to pay money to these security persons.  Money was given, they were let go, police were not called to the scene, and no one was arrested.

In the wake of security camera footage showing a bit of the hooliganism, the new story was how these four large intimidating swimmers were villainous rude lying Americans.  Two were pulled off their flight home and one was kept in Brazil until he paid $11,000 restitution to a Brazilian charity to get his passport back in order to leave the country.  (Lochte himself had already flown home, as scheduled, since at that point, the incident had seemed to have passed and he was never asked to stay for any reason.)

But in this viewpoint turnaround from all white to all black, some gray area details seemed to be overlooked.  With these journalists who are supposed to be neutral and just reporting what occurs, they seemed to gloss over some big points that would have highlighted this gray area, but take away from their witch-hunt breaking news story.

Keeping Us “On the Hook”

You couldn’t watch more than one segment of Olympic coverage that second week without hearing Lauer (who I usually really like) or Bob Costas  tell us to “stay-tuned” for details on “the Lochte story” always “coming up soon”.  Repetition and it’s constant placement as their headline story perpetuated it’s trending nature.  

They reported that Lochte’s antics had overshadowed the Olympics themselves, and how unfortunate that was to all the other athletes who worked so hard for their moment in the spotlight.  But wait, isn’t it these very reporters who keep focusing on it?  Keep talking about it every day, all day?  These same reporters who say it’s unfortunate?

Couldn’t it have been a one day story, and a mere footnote of the Rio games, if these journalists chose to focus on all of the other huge feel-good stories going on all around them?  Heck, you are at ground-zero of inspiration uniting the entire planet right now. 

It’s you, the media, who at this point are keeping it in the spotlight.  He could have nudged focus away for merely a day, and instead it is you who have made it what everyone is talking about day after day after day.  My husband calls them “ratings vampires”,  and I hate to  say it,  but I think he’s right.

They may say that it’s us, the public, who wants to know and so they are just giving us what we want.  But they control what’s in our consciousness by what they show and tell us on their programs.  Of course if that’s all you show us,  we’ll be curious.  But you have the opportunity to control what is in our consciousness by what you focus on and broadcast to us every day. 

Do a favor to international relations and focus on the positive stories of the athletes in every venue around you fulfilling their dreams and reaching out in support to each other in endless acts of sportsmanship that see no borders.

We All Live In Glass Houses

Yes, Lochte embellished.  Who hasn’t.  Heck, I embellished a story I told my husband last night at dinner.  Are there really any of us out there who have never done it?   Maybe there should be a universal ethical-mistake-gradient, with a guideline that you can only judge those who are more innocent on their lifetime continuum than you.

Yes, he vandalized and peed on a bush.  Not cool.  But are there any of us who can look back at our formative years and say they never did anything stupid they shouldn’t have?   I think what he did showed poor judgement, too.  But I also know that when you really think about it,  we all live in a glass house of some type,  so shouldn’t go throwing stones so reflexively. 

At least in their drunkeness, they didn’t get into a car and drive where they could have injured someone.  They taxi‘d it to the point of their hooliganism.  (No shade intended to Phelps because I think he is amazing and respect how he took responsibility for turning things around in his life, returning him to his place as one of our inspirational heroes.)  All I’m saying is that before the media vilifies Lochte, shouldn’t we extend him the same opportunity to learn from his mistake and become a more mature person for the lesson?

Exaggeration, Fabrication,  Omission or Lie?

About the glossed over details.  Security tape and witness accounts all agree that the swimmers were held at gunpoint and made to pay money, for their vandalism, before they would be let go.  

Bob Costas was quick to say Lochte’s story was fabricated.  Embellishing and omitting details (even big ones) is a bit different from a completely fabricated story.  If I had a gun pulled on me, whether it was touching my forehead, or pointed at me from a few feet away, I was still held at gunpoint.  And I’m going to tell people about it as a way of processing a traumatic experience.

Matt Lauer was quick to say, in his interview, that the exchange of money was just a negotiation, not a robbery.  I’m sorry,  but if someone aims a gun at you, demanding money in return for something, or to allow you to leave, then at minimum wasn’t it extortion?  They had not been arrested.  This was not the punishment given after a hearing in front of a judge.  Negotiation deals do not include the use loaded guns.  I’m not trying to be dramatic, but rather,  illustrate a point.

If security guards or cops in America showed up to a crime scene and “offered”,  with guns drawn,  to let the suspects go if they paid up, wouldn’t they be held as corrupt?  It doesn’t mean the ones breaking the law didn’t do something very wrong, it just means two wrongs don’t make a right.

Black, White or Gray?

I’m sure we don’t know all the details.  And even if we did, I admit I don’t know every aspect of the law.  Realistically, you can look at any event and see it from the perspective of each person involved.  And each of those perspectives would have truth to it.

All I’m  saying is that there is a continuum from white to gray to black.  And even though considering each gray area detail doesn’t make for as high ratings as a strong black and white story, it’s probably closer to truth in most cases.  And shouldn’t we be careful not to tarnish a reputation that someone has dedicated a lifetime to build,  just for a headline?

Did the Movie Come To Life?

Did you ever see that movie Night-Crawler with Jake Gyllenhaal ?  He played a reporter who chased stories for the news,  getting paid if the media thought his story was good enough to put on air.  Once he got taste of ratings and notoriety,  he began manipulating situations to actually create the stories that he could then record and report on.

Yeah, Lochte did something wrong.  But he didn’t go out looking to get his story out there broadcast to the world.  He was a typical knucklehead who immaturely embellished a story for better shock-value to get the attention of his own friends.   It was the lurking media that pushed him immediately on camera to tell the world.  He was human and was embarrassed, and didn’t want to say on camera that he had just exaggerated.  So he stuck to his story.  Webs tangle far too easily and quickly.

Later, in getting at “the truth”,  didn’t the media then do a 180 degree flip to then twist the story in the other direction?  Maybe Lochte verbally turned paying to get out of trouble into a robbery.  But didn’t the press do a similar thing when it repackaged a gunpoint shakedown into a “negotiation”,  since they had done something wrong first “to deserve it”?  

Isn’t that re-victimizing a victim?  Even if you started it by doing something wrong, it doesn’t mean you, too, can’t become a victim in the situation as it plays out.  Don’t we frown on that in another controversial situations?  Even misdemeanor wrong-doers aren’t “asking for it” in respect to off-label security tactics.  (If they were putting someone else in harms way, that’s another story.)

I can understand wanting a vandal to pay for damage they have done to your property.  Totally get it and agree.  But if they don’t  easily and willingly cooperate, you call the police and let them handle it.  They will arrest them, all sides will be heard, and a punishment will be handed down.  Then you will get that money in damages you deserve based on valuation of that property damage.  But when you pull out a loaded gun and demand that restitution, based on an abstract amount that may or may not be fair, you have entered into a gray area of ethics.

What You Focus On Grows

In the end, the important focus should be that Brazil is a beautiful country and hosted a kick-ass Olympics.  With ongoing threats of terrorism  around the globe,  going into such a huge event with so many people crowded into a relatively small place,  the fact that we got through the games without incident is a huge credit to the Brazilian security force over-seeing the games.  Thank goodness the biggest negative story coming out of the Olympics was just a kid drinking too much, tearing a poster down off a wall, and tinkling outside on someone’s plant.

What you focus on grows.  Can’t we just focus on the countless positive stories of the Olympics and not the media hype over this one story?   I don’t think any one of us would like the microscope of the media broadcasting every thing we said and did to the world.   Ryan will have to live with this memory, that’s a punishment on it’s own.  Let’s focus on how he just helped USA win a gold medal.

Let’s focus on the woman who was tripped in track, then helped up the competitor she had just fallen over, only to have that same competitor help her once she could no longer stand on her own.  Let’s focus on how someone who loses expected gold, instead decides to be grateful that they won bronze.  Let’s focus on the athletes who broke through invisible social boundaries of age, skin color, and sexual identity to be accepted and honored as many “firsts” on this year’s Olympic stage. 

And let’s focus on how amazing it is, that at a time in history when few people, from any country, feel safe thanks to recent devastating weather, civil unrest, and terrorism, that athletes from every country in the world came together peacefully in Rio.  How no matter what country, culture, religion, or language, all were viewed as equals, as Olympic athletes, each worthy of standing on the podium to hear their national anthem.  How they came in as strangers and competitors,  lived together harmoniously in a shared village, and parted as friends.

The media and the public each influence each other.  We talk about what they show us.  Then they talk about what we’re talking about.  Let’s call a truce and start fresh.  Let’s all try to re-focus on the positive, ok?  Let’s let the positive grow.