"Journalism," being OA over OA, and life [prustrations]

Or not. Image from issues.cc

A news article comes out with the title:

"Country sad about popularity contest loss."

When I read the article, 509 comments were posted on the news article, mostly with one of two types of messages:

"How OA (over acting) are those people in that country!"
"How OA is this article!"

But, really? 500+ comments over this "news" article? Isn't that OA as well? Isn't this a case of "ang magnanakaw takot sa kapwa magnanakaw ("a thief is wary of other thieves")"? Or pointing one finger at others, without knowing that they're pointing three at themselves?



Anyway, if there's one thing that I've learned over these years of reading, listening, and watching all sorts of "news," and that I've realized most specially over the past couple of years where I have been following technology-related news more closely, is this:

This is journalism.

Get over it, people!

These "professionals" write controversial articles that appeal to people's emotions. What happens then is, many people read those articles on the web, post comments, come back to reply to comments, and so on. What happens then is that ads get displayed over and over again. The end result: more money for the journalists.

I am not against these professionals though. They're making money by writing these attention-grabbing, link-baiting articles. It's not against the law. And I admire that. Except that they're playing with people's emotions. Surely, journalism doesn't have to be this way, but it's their job and like you and me, they need to pay the bills. It's no excuse, but it's their excuse.

What I wished though, and this is overly wishful thinking, is that people would read these kinds of articles and try to understand, behind all that color, what is the real message. If the title says "Whole country is sad over popularity contest loss," but the contents and the reality only show a very few people and not the whole country are actually sad over it, then that's what it is. Again, this is journalism, people. Get over it.

The saddest part for me though is that I have seen all this angry/condescending reactions that go like "These people are being too emotional about this matter; they're stupid and they're causing the downfall of this country!" The problem is these people are showing a lot of anger and disgust at the "highly emotional people" - not knowing that they're being emotional as well. Being OA over the OA?

Anyway, sadly, this is life. It seems that people cannot just accept that it's difficult to change others, and for many, it's just easier to point at others' failures and what not to make themselves feel better. I just do not like all the name-calling, and all the labeling. But then, this is life. Despite all the good intentions and efforts of some, it has been this way, sadly. Of course, life is not all like this. You have the choice as to how life will be for you. In the same way, you have the choice as to how to react to these kinds of "news" articles.