Tuned Out

For Journalism I am currently reading a book titled "Tuned Out: Why Americans Under 40 Don't Follow the News" by David T.Z. Mindich. I think the title is pretty self evident.

In our discussion on the book today my professor said that a large reason for why people under 40 are tuned out, is that the media itself is tuned out. They complain that they don't have an under 40 crowd when what they're giving us is this: RedEye from the Chicago Tribune. RedEye is the young adult version of the paper. It's lead story today: The Wonderful Life of Jennifer Hudson.

What the heck does Jennifer Hudson's wonderful life have to do with me? Why do I care if Avril and Perez were battling it out online? "'Mr. Toilet' builds a commode-shaped house"? Are you kidding me? Do these people seriously think that college students and even teenagers are at all interested in this nonsense? As my professor stated, more and more students are scoring higher and higher on ACT's and SAT's and they think this is what we want to read about? And the fact that each story is maybe four paragraphs of two or three sentences each. Do you think we're illiterate and have ADD?

I know I'm ranting a bit here, but seriously. Think about it. RedEye is what media companies think young people want to read about. Celebrities and houses shaped like toilets are the only things we're interested in because we're ignorant boobs who don't care about things that actually pertain to our lives.

I want to read about what's going on in the government. I mean, we will be voting for the next president of the United States. The person who will make huge decisions that affect my life like whether or not we should stay in a war. I have several friends who are or have been in Iraq as soldiers. This has been the deadliest year in Iraq and you want to tell me about Twista and his "fight against corporate America"?

How are young people, who are the future of this country by the way, suppose to make informed decisions about the future of our democratic country when we have no idea what's going on?

Yes, obviously we have to be active in keeping up with the news if we want to know what's going on. But where are the stories that pertain to us? The last story I remember reading or seeing was on Virginia Tech. Where are all the follow up stories about mental health in colleges or privacy and confidentiality issues inside colleges? (These are mostly coming from my professor by the way.) But he makes a good point.

Media companies as well as young people need to start "tuning in". I don't have a fool-proof solution but I am going to do what I can to stay informed and try to let the media companies know that I care about what's going on in the world; that I want to know so they better get in gear and start printing some real stories. If they think we're tuned out and want our business then they need to stop feeding us crap.

Am I the only one feeling this way (besides my professor)?