Those who are familiar with Malcolm Muggeridge already know that he was a journalist. If you didn't know that, you may wonder how it is possible for a journalist to be a Christian (grin), but that's a discussion for another day. The fact is that Muggeridge was a journalist, and in his lectures that later became the little book, The End of Christendom, Muggeridge notes some problems with the media. Here is the quote from pages 38-39.
"A strange thing I have observed over many years in this business of news gathering and news presentation is that by some infallible process media people always manage to miss the most important thing. It's almost as though there were some built-in propensity to do this. In moments of humility, I realize that if I had been correspondent in the Holy Land at the time of our Lord's ministry, I should almost certainly have spent my time knocking about with the entourage of Pontius Pilate, finding out what the Sanhedrin was up to, and lurking around Herod's court with the hope of signing up Salome to write her memoirs exclusively. I regret that this is true. Ironically enough, as the dramatization of the public scene gains impetus, so we move farther and farther from the reality of things and become more and more preoccupied with fantasy."
That last line gave me pause. Here is Muggeridge, speaking in 1978, addressing the problem of news and reality. I understand this paragraph to be saying that even in '78, Muggeridge saw signs of the media's "dramatization of the public scene" as opposed to the straightforward reporting of "the reality of things." Is this some kind of reference to "making the news" versus "reporting the news"? Perhaps, but more to the point is the reference to the danger of becoming "more and more preoccupied with fantasy." This remark certainly sounds a lot like "reality" TV, doesn't it?
Think about it--we neglect our "real" lives to tune in to shows that purport to show us "reality" on TV. Yet these very shows are more interested in the dramatization of an "unrealistic" setting than in offering us "reality." We strand a bunch of people on an island, encourage them to stab each other in the back, film the results, edit that film, and then call it "reality!" Does anyone else appreciate the irony?
We take the desire among most humans for a loving relationship, find some single guy, set him up with a choice of several gorgeous women, and then film their responses as the fat hits the fan. Then we call it "reality" TV!
We put a bunch of has-been celebrities together in a house, encourage them to participate in shenanigans, then we call it "reality."
Why are we obsessed with this stuff? Could it be that our own "reality" is so mundane that we want a substitute reality for it?
We all know that (like TV wrestling) most of these "reality" shows follow a script and are edited to elicit a certain response, yet we persist in calling them "reality" TV!
Muggeridge was practically prophetic here. Look at the major cable "news" networks--don't you see basic "dramatization" of events instead of a reporting of "things"? Why does the coverage of MSNBC, CNN, and even Fox look the same? We are living in the age of reality dramatization predicted by Muggeride almost 30 years ago!
What do you think?
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