Bad is good

Another year of journo-tainment, and it's all my fault

by Jay Jaroch

On a hazy summer's morning this past July, while vacationing with my family on the south shore of Martha's Vineyard, I awoke to the voice of a TV anchorman coming from the living room and the sound of helicopters coming from outside.

Now, I couldn't explain the helicopters, but in my family that kind of television volume means one of two things. Either a) there was some sort of huge, unexpected weather event coming, meriting the 24-hour Team 7 coverage that without fail induces my mother to cancel all plans and embark on a hot-dog-bun-buying binge at the A&P, or b) someone important had died. As it turned out, it was b), and not only was that "someone" John F. Kennedy Jr., but he and his wife and her sister had disappeared within sight of our local beach.

Instantly the island was in the midst of a media frenzy. And whatever other emotions were stirred in the following days, for me the loss of JFK Jr.'s plane also served as a test. As someone who likes to think of himself as being somewhat above the Nielsen fray -- a decidedly discriminating NewsHour with Jim Lehrer type -- I was now presented with a multichannel, round-the-clock-coverage test of my own resolve. I could ignore the circus and try to go on with my Vineyard vacation, understanding (sensibly) that my TV viewing would have no bearing on the crisis's eventual outcome. Or I could sit inside and watch the live feed from Channel 7's tragicopter while the crew hovered just outside my window desperately dreaming of those first marketable shots of JFK Jr.'s beret washing ashore.

I don't need to tell you what I did. Though I didn't exactly postpone my vacation, I was in my seat long enough to watch Kim Carrigan and Randy Price's faces turn professionally grim when the news turned bad. Now, looking back at my behavior during the year's biggest news story -- hell, looking back on the whole year in news -- I've come to grips with the truth: I'm a sicko voyeur. I'm a closet sucker for journo-tainment. I'm one of the reasons the wrap-ups of the News of 1999 will mostly be catalogues of other people's misery.

And I'm not alone. You're probably the same way.

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When I look back on the year in news, it looks less like a highlight reel than like a terrible blooper video. Barbara Walters interviewed Monica Lewinsky, and I waited impatiently for Baba to get down to business, pull the rug out, and just make her cry. Like most people, I didn't give a shit about Woodstock '99. After all, Kid Rock ain't Jimi Hendrix. (Christ, he's not even Joan Baez.) But I did start getting excited when the riots engulfed MTV's crow's nest and there was an outside chance that something might hit Carson Daly and fracture his smile.

I heard that Britain's Prince Edward and Sophie Rhys-Jones were royally wed, but I didn't pay much attention -- I'll tune in when their marriage hits trouble. George W. Bush emerged as the likely Republican nominee before anyone had even heard him speak, but the most interesting thing he did was flub a pop quiz from Andy Hiller (a reporter from -- surprise! -- Channel 7). Bill Bradley has an irregular heartbeat. Tipper says Al sleeps in the buff. McCain? Boring as a reformer, but potentially juicy as a hothead.

NASA lost two Mars probes, but the best part was watching the pride-swallowing admission of a simple error in metric conversion -- rocket scientists owning up to a mistake that could have been solved by looking at the inside pocket of a Trapper Keeper. I have to admit that I was strangely comforted to see that people in the Middle East are still throwing rocks at each other. The Stone Temple Pilots put out a record, but I didn't turn the volume up till they announced Scott Weiland's latest arrest. There were a lot of nice spring days, but the weather star of the year was a hurricane named for David Hasselhoff's character on Baywatch -- not only did Mitch give everyone in North Carolina waterfront property, but it knocked half of Central America out of commission.

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I'm not sure why so many of us are mesmerized by misfortune, but it's hardly new; "if it bleeds, it leads" was a TV news dictum years before the Tabloid Decade of the '90s, and a driving principle in newspaper coverage for decades before that. Why? Maybe that fruitcake day trader in Atlanta made us all feel better about our own jobs. Maybe we're legitimately moved by the tragedy in the Worcester warehouse, and we get to count our blessings when we don't see an empty chair across our holiday table.

More likely, however, we're just sick fucks with nothing better to do. But one thing's for sure: just because it was bad doesn't mean it mattered. The Year in Review is, to a large extent, the Year in Triviality, and the only way to change this is for all of us to understand our own complicity. We, as a nation, have a problem.

Personally, I've finally taken the first step and admitted that I'm an addict. I now hope to contribute my personal drop to the sanity bucket. My New Year's resolution: more Jim Lehrer, less Channel 7. (I'll miss you, Mish Michaels.)

No doubt my new steadfastness will be tested soon. After all, it is the end of December. Around these parts, that can mean snow. So the next time two inches is on the way -- God forbid! -- and the local stations start interrupting programming to go to the weather center and the team coverage and the "live from the shovel department at Home Depot" to prepare us for the "deadly winter blast," I'll laugh and lament how pathetically overstimulated and under-thoughtful we've all become. Then I'll turn to my roommate and say, "Hey, dude -- we're getting a huge snowstorm. Better go get us some buns."

Jay Jaroch is a freelance writer living in Cambridge. He can be reached at jayjaroch@hotmail.com, unless news breaks that Newt Gingrich has been caught masturbating at a highway rest stop on New Year's Eve.