| | News stories on obesity.Page 1 of 1 | | It never fails to crack me up how no matter what the specific topic is (reports on obesity, new drugs to help fight it) that we always get a few minutes of random stock footage of fat people, from the neck down, waddling around completely unaware they're being documented and put forth as exemplars of rotundness in modern America. What's the point? To remind us what fat people look like when they're out in public? Is it some kind of warning? Sly mockery? | |
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| News stories on obesity.
Posted: 7/18/2012 9:39:20 AM | I used to have a friend in the biz, and he showed me that what you describe results from the standard industrial/business school/mba approach to the "news" manufacturing method.
All stories are assembled based on a pre-established format, including the structure of the spoken verbiage (tell the audience what you are going to say, tell them what you want to say, then tell them what you just said), and the pattern of visual cues.
The by-rote approach is supposed to provide two basic things: familiarity for the audience, so as not to stress their limited attentions spans and knowledge base, and to allow the "news" organization to create the very least expensive time-fillers possible.
Creativity is dangerous, because the organization risks being accused of manipulating the news even more than they already are, if they permit their reporters to actually think. | |
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| News stories on obesity.
Posted: 7/19/2012 9:44:49 AM | This reminds me of a skit I saw several years ago on Saturday Night Live. It was a mock "award ceremony" in the vein of the Oscars and what not, but it was for stock footage. They called the awards "The Stockies" or something like that.
Nominees for stockie of the year included "Al-Qaeda terrorists training on monkey bars" and of course "random obese people shown from the neck down". I got a pretty good laugh out of that skit. | |
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