I love Mika Brzezinski

Best Practices-executive summary-fairness

"such individual journalistic shortcomings as arrogance, sensationalism, prejudice, over-coverage of violence, and and invasion of privacy are often taken together by the public as a singular demonstration that the press is not fair" (10)

It is for these reason that I do not write sports articles. I am aware of my prejudice and negative bias towards athletes, plus I have no clue as to the rules of any sports games.

Sensationalism occurs because it sells. Newspapers are not ruled solely by proper ethics and integrity; they are also ruled by the almighty dollar. The news is a business, and scandal sells papers. I'm going to once again bring up the Anna Nicole incident. It was everywhere. For months you could not turn on a tv set without seeing her pancake-makeup face plastered all over CNN and MSNBC. Did it matter that we have a war going on? That to many people was same-old, same-old. It's really said that a report containing information about a car bomb that killed 15 people barely registers. You flip to Family guy and forget about it. We become numb to destruction when it occurs in succession.

Normal people aren't interesting enough for the public. They want to read about celebrities, who have been elevated to the status of demi-gods because of their unusual jobs. Case in point: the Paris Hilton Jail Controversy. Why the hell was it so important to have round-the-clock coverage of the jail entrance. I guess it as because Paris was finally getting what a celebrity deserved: to be treated as human. But then again, everyone who offends the law as she did receives the same punishment. "Poor" Paris was human for the first time in her life. But a human isn't interesting. Thank god for journalists like Mika Brzezinski who have the courage to stand up and say, "no, we're not doing this." Mika became in Internet sensation when she tore up the Paris Hilton in favor of a more relevant story. She made a very good point: gossip is not news.

this comment was found on a youtube video of the incident:

from "sprintbass:"

"no we don't have to obsess about misery but surely to god must we obsess about some lazy eyed talent-less person who only got to where she is because of daddy and a night vision camera Mika Brzezinski hotter than her anyway and is a real woman and apparently hates fluff as much as i do lol!"

Ignoring the crudeness of the comment, sprintbass makes good points: we don't have to obsess over the war, but it is worthless to obsess over a person who is not really making a contribution to society. How does walking around in min-skirts saying, "that's hot" improve the world.

Last July, I met Mika at a funeral. Her nephew is my friend from high school.  You better believe I walked up to her, looked her straight in th eye, and said, "you are awesome and my hero for doing that." Considering there were over 6,400 comments left on this youtube video, most favoring Mika, I'd say that it is a safe bet that the public would rather read a relevant story that sensational fluff.

Mika admitted that while there was a story, it wasn't a very good one.