The media has the power to do good and keep people around the world informed about significant events that might have an impact on their lives, but we often see how news organizations have chosen to focus on irrelevant stories that offer anyone who is unfortunate enough to read them just a bit of gossip-based on faulty information. Even worse, this story goes beyond just being uneventful. It threatens to tarnish individual’s reputations all for the sake of quickly getting a story out and baiting people to open the article.
A perfect example is with a British producer in his mid-sixties who side hugged one of the junior writers on the team. The female writer felt uncomfortable about the encounter and decided to make a complaint to HR at CBS. That was a brave and fair decision. She risked a lot and told her truth. The producer agreed to go through sensitivity training, which satisfied the woman. It sounds like a happy ending, right? He was willing to learn from his mistakes and the writer was willing to accept that change. So why are we still even talking about this? I think they both did what they were supposed to do given the situation.
Well, this is where things get misconstrued. Following the allegations, the writer felt that her job duties dwindled because of her complaint. She chose to leave the show, a decision that had absolutely nothing to do with the producer or the incident. However, almost every headline out there concerning this dull story makes it seem as if the writer’s departure was a direct result of the event. Additionally, words such as inappropriate are used to describe the incident, which is sure to blacken the producer’s reputation and make the situation appear to be much worse than what really happened. It also threatens the writer making her look vindictive.
My goal isn’t to comment on the young woman’s choice to report the scenario or to paint the producer to be a saint of sorts – nobody’s perfect. In the end, none of this matter anyway since the issue was already resolved. Rather, this story serves as an example of the way the media can hurt someone’s reputation and potentially their career just to attract more readers. Unfortunately, we as people tend to be drawn to stories depicting the bad in people. Google rewards those stories and they eventually start trending on google news and innuendo becomes a reality.
While it can be difficult to discern between real content and simple clickbait, we as consumers must try to work be aware of the news we read and share. Any time we click on a link with a title that captures our attention promising a scandalous story, the more it spreads. While stories like this one might seem harmless and ordinary, they prevent the truth from being known. Issues become much larger than they are. What was once a simple side hug becoming a major story. What was once a mere work dispute has now been construed to be something else. As this story shows, not everything that makes it on the news is newsworthy. As consumers, all we can do is try our best to look past the embellishments and pull out the truth. Hard to do unless you are really paying attention and most of us do not even get past the first paragraph. Did you?
I’m a 20-something stay-at-home mother and wife. I have an amazing husband, a beautiful daughter, two loving dogs, and a lazy cat. I wouldn’t change my life for anything! I love to read, listen to music, cook and blog!
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