Furry Fabrication

I'm always confused when people talk about how newspapers are dying, yet appear to ignore the fact TV news is in just as bad of shape. They want to pretend it is only the print-side of things which are having problems when the reality is that the entire news media industry is collapsing. Every day standards are being lowered, with celebrity fashion passing as news and Twitter comments full of grammatical errors from random people watching at home being given the same level of respect as the opinions of people who have been actual journalist for decades. Honestly, it is kind of embarrassing. Just the other day I saw a story about how CNN is no longer sending reporters to cover stories, instead opting to use stories off the wire, cheaper freelancers who are already in the area or interviewing people through Skype. I'm not saying Skype isn't great, just that it is a little hard to claim your spot as a news leader when you have the same production value as an in-home video webcast. Of course, this is all being done to reduced costs because news channels simply don't pull in the ad revenue that entertainment shows do. It's a tough job trying to balance the hard (read: depressing) news people need to know about versus the fun (read: frivolous) stuff that people can't seem to get enough of. Unfortunately under the current model it seems like the only way to stay in the news business is to report on less and less news.

That is why I was so surprised the other day when I saw that the local news programs are still doing those 'investigation' stories. Now, I'm not talking about the real investigations into serious issues, I mean the 'gotcha' style pieces. You know the ones I am talking about - they get teased all afternoon and the often feature a reporter ambushing a local business owner as he is walking to his car because he over-charge several customers for some service and then did shoddy work or grilling a small-time politician who gave out a work permits to the wrong company and it ended up costing the city upwards of $1,000. They are scandalous enough to get people to watch, but never to the point of being able to lead the news. Obviously these reports do some kind of service to the community but if you were looking to cut costs they would be a good place to start, because I'm pretty sure paying the reporter and crew cost more than the corruption they are trying to expose. The other night I saw one of these stories which just confirmed to me that they are reached the end of their usefulness. The reporter was doing a story on a couple of local stores which sold coats that had parts they claimed were made of fake fur. After taking it to a specialist it was revealed that those sections of the coat were actually made with real fur. Seriously - that was the entire story. I'm sorry, is this really the best use of the station's shrinking budget?

Obviously, this report left me with a ton of questions, the first of which is to wonder why someone who had such a problem with fur would buy a fur coat, regardless of whether or not the fur was fake? I can only assume it is because they aren't really an environmentalist but want to appear as such, like the guy who buys the Hybrid Escalade. (Seriously, they get like 5 more miles to the gallon. You aren't helping.) The next thing I thought was that this actually seems like a good deal for these people. To the best of my knowledge real fur costs about twice as much as the fake stuff, so I don't know what they are complaining about. If I thought I was buying a set of used golf clubs online and brand-new ones showed up in the mail I wouldn't call the news stations and demand an investigation. To me it very telling that the story did not contain any interviews without outraged consumers who felt they were cheated, as I am pretty sure they don't exist. Finally, I wondered what would spark their concern. If the roles were reversed and people were paying extra for what they thought was real and it turned out to be fake, that would be fraud. I just can't find a victim here. I mean, it is not like the people had a deadly peanut allergy and the restaurant promised to be peanut-free, only to discover half the dishes contained peanut oil. That would be newsworthy, this is just a strange case of maybe offending people who shouldn't claim the moral high ground anyway.

Since none of my questions were answered in the piece I was left to assume this report was filed on behalf of the station manager's wife, who had someone point out her hypocrisy and thus can no longer feel superior about wearing fake fur. (I always feel like these kind of fraud reports are only brought up because they happen to either the reporter or a member of their family. The fact that one of the stores was in Wellesley was just the clincher.) In this case it could simply be that this particular reporter has a real problem with fur, which is good for her - she has every right to investigate the causes which are closest to her heart. However, that doesn't mean they should be investigated at the expense of larger, more important stories which impact more people. I mean, there is nothing illegal about buying, selling or wearing fur so the only crime here is that several tags were mislabeled, because tags are supposed to tell you when fur is real. When every last dime is being squeezed that doesn't seem like a very useful way to spend money. I just hope they are a little more picky about their investigation pieces in the future because if they aren't going to do a real story I'd almost rather they fill that time with some canned piece from the network and stockpile their budget for when a real story breaks. It would be a shame if they were unable to cover the upcoming special election because they blew the budget investigating whether or not Marylou's actually has the best coffee in town like they claim.