Sexual hypocrisy

For the past several months, the television news media appears to have been falling all over itself covering the supposed wild popularity of the "Fifty Shades of Grey" franchise. Morning show co-hosts, both male and female, can't seem to contain their excitement over production of the first "Fifty Shades" movie due out some time next year.

In an era of high sexual perversion, I'm not at all surprised that the kinky, dark side of sex is being exploited, glamourized and sensationalized. However, I do find it surprising that mainstream media is embracing this darker side of popular culture given heightened vigilance society has toward sexual crimes and misconduct.

In a single morning show episode, NBC's "Today Show" co-hosts debated the appropriateness of a Colorado school district suspending a six-year-old boy for kissing a girl on the hand, while excitedly anticipating the upcoming release of the first "Fifty Shades" movie.

How can we say in one breath that what the little boy did was inappropriate, and in the next exclaim how excited we are to see a sexually explicit movie about bondage and domination? It makes absolutely no sense. It is absurd.

We chastize a little boy for committing sexual harassment, simply for kissing a little girl's hand; something that was a show of respect in times gone by. But we turn right around and act like a bunch of giddy school kids awaiting a movie that we want to see because it speaks to our inner desires.

The hypocrisy over the way our culture views sex and sexual expression couldn't be more evident.

We chide people for their public expressions of romance, calling such actions harassment. But we embrace "tolerance" and open-mindedness when it comes to sexual expression in art.

We cheer artistic sexual expression, but we ignore how these messages can get conveyed by viewers, readers and consumers of such. We seem appalled when consumers translate this expression in public.

Really?

Seems to me like a natural consequence.

If we say it's okay to promote alternative sexual lifestyles, but not okay to act them out publicly, where is the rationale in that? If it's okay to promote sex, but not okay to act out sex, what sense does this make?

I agree that acting out sex publicly can be very destructive and should be discouraged. But so should the explicit and implicit messages that our culture sends people through art and expression.

It makes no rational sense at all to condemn an act but embrace the message that can influence an act.

But that's what human culture does. We want it all: The ability to express ourselves without restraint, but then we want the ability to regulate our actions.

Until we recognize that thoughts influence actions, I doubt humanity will ever see its hypocrisy.

Compassion...journalist style

About a month ago, news about the Justice Department's official report on the Newtown, Connecticut, shooting was released. Survivors and victims' families were given the opportunity to view the government's final report. It was entirely voluntary, and no one was required to read the findings.

At the time, NBC "Today Show" co-host Matt Lauer reported that the network had made the decision not to air the findings out of respect for the victims' families. Then, in his next breath, Lauer commented that NBC made this decision because there was nothing new in the report. Because there was nothing new, it wasn't worth revealing publicly, and better to respect the feelings of the survivors and victims' families.

So, ultimately, NBC's decision was not made out of a measure of compassion toward those most directly affected by the massacre. Rather, it was made for pragmatic, practical reasons. There wasn't anything new, exciting or revealing in the report to waste NBC's precious air time with; so why bother? Instead, let's respect the victims' families and the survivors by not airing the details of the report.

However, if there had been something new in the report, then the victims' families and survivors be damned. The media would have aired these details despite any feelings about it, and irrespective of compassion toward those most affected by the event.

In my experience, journalists can be among the most callous and desensitized professionals in the business world. More ruthless than a commodities buyer or speculator. More heartless than a corporate executive whose company runs a sweat shop. More inhuman than a software engineer who talks to computers all day.

I know this, because I was a journalist for a decade. I saw first-hand just how separated from reality these people can be.

I remember my first year working in a news room. It was around 11 p.m., and one reporter was listening intently to traffic on a police scanner. The night had been a very slow one as news was concerned. Editors were worried about what their lead front-page story would be. Maybe coverage of a local quilt show? A high school sporting event? Something soft and not very intriguing.

Then, a few minutes later, traffic over the scanner indicated an automobile accident on the highway outside of town. The dispatcher reported to the responding officers that there may be a fatality.

Suddenly, the reporter came alive and with wide eyes and a smile on his face, he exclaimed, "Yes! There's our front page!"

I couldn't believe my ears. He was cheering over a fatal car accident? Who, in their right mind, would do such a thing?

The answer: A journalist.

I resolved at that moment not to ever let myself get so desensitized by my work that I would come to regard human beings and the things that happen to them as just words on a page, a headline, a tag line, a photograph that sells newspapers, magazines and air time.

The NBC decision not to air the final report on Newtown was equally as callous as the reporter rejoicing over a car accident. There wasn't anything new to report, so we will respect the feelings of survivors and families. But that wouldn't be the case if there was something new to report.

In other words, feelings and compassion are only important when it doesn't compete with "journalistic responsibility." I call this journalistic zeal; not responsibility.

Responsibility is acting on and exercising conscience. Something the news media rarely, if ever, does when ethics compete with a juicy story.

I'm just a little bit tired of the phony "compassion" displayed by news journalists. They relish in making themselves appear compassionate, tolerant and empathetic. But this ruse lasts only as long as there isn't something "new" to report on. Then these bastions of humanity become barricudas.

It is a frighteningly quick transformation, because a journalist can turn from a warm-blooded human being into a cold-blooded viper faster than Clark Kent stripped to his Superman suit in the telephone booth.

I struggle daily to respect news journalists because of their disingenuousness. I was too honest, too real, and didn't have enough onion layers on me to survive long enough as a news professional. I was too human, and not zealous enough.

Thank God for that.

Serious journalism...

...versus not so serious.

The distinction can be summed up by the difference between the Wall Street Journal and the National Enquirer.

Serious journalism is the gathering, organizing and reporting of information without all of the fru-fru. It is about communication; moving information from one source to another. Serious journalism can be dry, bland and boring. But it has a practical, functional purpose behind it.

There is a world of difference between the journalistic approaches of the nightly news casts and the morning shows that air on the alphabet networks; like the difference between an ice-cream cone and a hot-fudge sundae.

One is basic, and the other super sugar-coated. One is serious, and the other light-hearted. One is hard news, the other soft. One is structured, and the other laissez-faire. One is about delivering information, the other entertainment.

I don't mind so much the light-hearted nature of the morning shows. But I resent the hosts calling themselves journalists.

Bologne.

If they are at all journalists, they are overly fancied versions. They are entertainers on the level of Ed Sullivan, Johnny Carson, and Jay Leno.

The difference between Brian Williams of the NBC Nightly News and Matt Lauer of the NBC Today Show is like the distinction between a sales representative and a used car salesman. While both are salespeople, one is focused on profession while the other on showmanship.

Jerry Rice and Deion Sanders are good comparisons. Both were professional athletes; but Rice took his profession more seriously. The football field was his office. For Sanders, it was a stage upon which to show off. Rice was a worker; Sanders a showman.

The same can be said about Michael Jordan and Shaquille O'Neal. The former was a hard-working professional on the court, while the other was more of a showman.

Lauer is not a serious journalist. He's a showman. If he was, then he wouldn't be content to hosting a soft-news driven morning show, and would have ambitions of anchoring a nightly news broadcast. While I don't feel his former co-host, Katie Couric, was a particularly effective or serious journalist, either, she at least had the ambition to seek a more serious position in her profession; even though it didn't last.

Call me a morning show humbug, but I just am not impressed with these programs as premier journalistic venues. I really don't mind them being light-hearted and soft in their approaches. But I think it is a misnomer to really consider morning shows as serious journalism.

Of all of the hosts on the three networks in the morning, only Al Roker fits the bill of a morning show host. He's naturally funny and light-hearted; the way morning shows are designed to be. But he's also a meteorologist; a weather man. He doesn't fancy himself as a journalist.

Morning show hosts are entertainers above all. They are not journalists. Their job is to present information in an entertaining fashion; not to report it and pass it on.

If you want to see serious journalism in action, watch your local news broadcasts. If you want entertainment, then watch the morning shows. But don't think for a minute that these morning show hosts pass for serious journalists.

Serious journalists aren't content to write gossip columns for the rest of their career any more than broadcasters are content to host entertainment programs rather than news casts for the remainder of their careers.

You morning show people have traded serious journalism for entertainment. All fine and dandy.

Just do us all a favor and don't call yourselves serious journalists; because you're not.