On the media: in defense of Justin Bieber

all out of love: Insurance woes: Obamacare proving ineffective

106,856. That is the number of people who successfully selected—not bought—a new healthcare plan this past October under the Obama administration’s legislation often referred to as ‘Obamacare.’ The program’s official name is the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a moniker that now seems ironic, given recent struggles.
A mere 27,000 people dove into the behemoth website that is healthcare.gov and emerged having successfully selected a plan. For those in need of a refresher, healthcare.gov is the federal government’s version of a highly touted new-age online marketplace; the particulars of the ACA were centered on the assumption of its functionality. In Maine, a state that opted to use the federal government’s website, only 271 people selected a plan by the end of the month.
As kindly noted by Rep. Steve Stockman of Texas, more people caught chlamydia last month than selected a plan under Obamacare. He also noted that more people followed Nickelback on Twitter, and bought Yoko Ono’s first album than selected a plan.

all out of love: The allure of Don Draper: why the ‘anti-hero’ in modern TV is so compelling

Don Draper commands attention—enough to merit an entire TV show, in fact. On the ’60s era drama “Mad Men,” Draper commits heinous acts and lives by an extraordinarily questionable code of ethics, yet still never fails to fascinate.
Askmen.com has hailed him as a “role model for men everywhere,” and he is among those named “men of the year” by GQ magazine almost every year.
Even for those aware of his flaws, Draper holds a peculiar attraction. His serial philandering and rampant sexism certainly earn him his fair share of criticism, but casually dismissing him as the villain of a TV show does ignore the bigger problem: people look up to this man.

all out of love

On the media: in defense of Justin Bieber

The mainstream media’s embrace of Justin Bieber is no surprise in a climate dominated by sites like Barstool.

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

Drew Van Kuiken

Columnist

January 31, 2014

Last Thursday, Justin Bieber was charged with drunk driving, resisting arrest and driving without a valid license at 4 a.m. in Miami Beach. By midday, his story had captivated America and become the most interesting cable news story since Paula Deen collapsed under the weight of her own greasy, deep-fried sense of ethics last year.

Accordingly, when MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell invited former Democratic Rep. Jane Harman onto her show to discuss the NSA’s future, and Bieber’s arraignment hearing began during the middle of the interview, she had little choice but to interrupt Harman mid-sentence and cut to a live feed of the courtroom.

When later questioned about the appropriateness of their decision, Mitchell reasoned that she has “more foreign policy coverage five days a week than any other program on television.” Apparently Mitchell’s painstaking foreign coverage had earned her the right to cover celebrity indiscretions.

Of course, Mitchell’s behavior wasn’t unusual among the major news networks; Bieber’s conduct dominated national discussion over the course of the entire day. In fact, among the major news networks, only Fusion TV and Al Jazeera neglected to cover the event, ensuring that their viewership of 30 missed out on a major pop culture occurrence.

It would be easy to chide the major news networks for live-reporting Bieber’s every movement in jail at the expense of coverage featuring, for example, the Ukranian revolution. But as someone with an introductory economics course under my belt, I can safely say that that is not how supply and demand works. We hear the tales of Bieber’s woes because that is what we want.

With the explosion of political punditry in recent years, news has become far more focused on opinions. It fits our world well. Digesting large sets of data or analyzing complex problems requires time, and passively listening to a pundit break something down doesn’t. Instead of idolizing Richard Engel, we pay our respects to Rush Limbaugh and Bill Maher.

As newspapers die a slow, painful death and TV stations transition to a 24-hour slate of dramatically-named programs with eerily similar talking heads, one lesson has emerged: the news media really wants to tell us what to think. As a columnist, I can’t really complain about this. I get to sit on a couch, fake laugh every so often and talk about nothing all day. Despite the questionable value of my own work, my compatriots must forge onwards with what the market demands. Like them, we cannot rest on our laurels. Adaptation is key.

When Barstool Sports began in the early 2000s, it offered free gambling information that creator Dave Portnoy would hand out on the Boston subway. Since then, the self-described “sports/smut” blog has exploded into a national phenomenon. Mostly popular among men aged 18-35, the site gets over 13 million page views per month and as of 2010, had already garnered more unique visitors per month than sites for Rolling Stone, Glamour or GQ. The site provides sports commentary, pictures of women, and the occasional news story, with a sarcastic write-up accompanying almost everything. It even covered the Ukranian revolt, showing pictures of the protestors wearing colanders and other items on their heads as protection and noting that they now had the advantage of “cutting edge armor.”

Barstool has more than its fair share of detractors, including a man suing the site for calling him a pedophile with virtually no evidence, but that may come with its lowbrow reputation. In a dying industry, the site has seen exploding growth.

And while the site may offend many, Barstool appears to be an intentionally controversial wing of the industry that publicized fake, racist names for the deceased pilots of a crashed airplane.

With this in mind, Mitchell may not have been wrong when she cut from a serious discussion to broadcast Justin Bieber’s arraignment. She gave the people what they wanted. Mitchell’s true mistake came in her apology: having the most foreign policy on her show clearly isn’t an advantage anymore.

If Barstool offers any insight into our world, news must be taken with a grain of salt. The future of Mitchell’s industry lies in short quips and comical analysis of current events. When serious news coverage is eventually called for, we can all turn to Al Jazeera. But until then, success will mean the funniest coverage of Bieber’s latest antics.

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