Interesting analysis. Anything that starts out sounding like, "No news is good news - because good news 'isn't news'" gets my attention. Because I think that is a fundamental which is difficult to keep firmly in mind "when all about you are losing their heads - and blaming it on you."Journalism is about attracting attention and selling advertising. That is their business model. And since the construction of a house, tho good, is planned and executed gradually, it is naturally less of a "news" item than the destruction of that same house in a fire. And that explains why the Chicago Fire is much more famous than the prior construction of Chicago from scratch in a few decades in the Nineteenth Century.
Speaking of which, it is interesting to note that Chicago was the first place in which "balloon construction" was done. You have probably seen "balloon construction" - unless you are blind; that is how Americans have built houses ever since. It was called "balloon" construction because it was so light compared to the timber construction which was the norm from time immemorial. I got that information from The Americans: the National Experience, which is the second book of a trilogy by Daniel Boorstin. Fascinating book, highly recommended.
Mainstream media’s “news” is not objective — but a dysfunctional perspective of life, which attracts dysfunctional personalities to the profession — that increases that mob-think. Different professions, like every subculture, attracts a certain profile of personality as their ideal — which of course eliminates the kind of real diversity which would provide them perspective and insight. Instead, they are a narrow group of narrow minded people who get more inbred every year until they cannot understand why the rest of the world has passed them by, while they insist they are leading the parade, or at least the thinking in this country — when in fact, they have self-selected so nobody can think, so as not to threaten the editors and the rigid pecking order that drives out the talent.
When the talent is locked on the outside and regarded as the “enemy,” those subcultures, even if at one time predominant, have doomed themselves to sterility and extinction. And that is the present state the mainstream media (journalism) finds itself in. Yes, they have been successful at ensuring that nobody with talent can ever bypass all the drones who think the way to get to the top is just to outlive everybody else and harass the up and coming talent, into leaving, after exploiting them as much as possible during their internship, thinking they’ll always be an unlimited supply of ambitious fools willing to prostitute themselves and demonstrate their dedication to do “anything” to get to the top.
That’s why when one sees these “writers” on television or even pictures in their byline, one then understands why such hideous people could produce such a twisted and distorted view of the world — and think that’s what the rest of society should think to be accepted as “normal” in their opinion — as though that opinion should matter.
Journalists are very prone to envy and resentment because they often interview these “famous” people, many who have no talent and ability either, and wonder why that can’t be them — because they have no insight in what is going on, and think that they are entitled to be just as famous — but for what, they don’t think is necessary to master.
So basically that’s all we see these days in the mainstream media as the “news” — everything that is not important to know, while useful information is denied, suppressed or ignored. Meanwhile, they all think they deserve to be the next media icon. So what if they are coarse, stupid, ugly people: “look at Helen Thomas” and virtually everybody else featured in the newspapers. Why these people should have any presence in the American consciousness is beyond me.