Big Bite of Media Reality

Posted by Cynical Sarah on February 18, 2010

Watching the story of Kevin Smith being “too fat to fly” this week has brought me back to why I can never go back to being a “journalist.”

Way back in 2006 when I started this site, I wrote a little article called “Ethics Schmethics” about how quickly I learned that journalism in the real world is not as objective as it is made out to be in college. Ideally, people in the news media are supposed to dig for all the information and write an unbiased story that tells both sides clearly.

My first job out of college I learned it clearly isn’t that way in the real world. In the real world it’s about selling papers, selling ad space and making sure the bottom line of the business is good. Kevin Smith and other “people of size” are getting a great big bite of that reality this week.

All sorts of media latched on to this story for one reason – they recognize it’s going to bring traffic to their site, their show, their papers, whatever. If there hadn’t been a loud-mouth famous “person of size” in this story, it wouldn’t have gotten a second look (unless this average person was getting just as much twitter and blog traffic). If it had been picked up by mainstream media about an average joe fat person on the plane, it’s likely the story would be slanted completely different.

I’ve been there, done that, and it’s all about what will make the story sell. What headline will get people to pick up that paper, click on that link, turn to that channel. Rarely does that mean actually getting real journalism and real news stories without an agenda anymore.

So I have to say Kevin Smith is more than justified in his latest blog post when he writes:

“F*** you, media, for not looking any deeper than the sound bite that’ll sell a falsehood. I’ve been here telling you the other side of the story for a few days, and you’d rather dress people up in fat suits and guess at my weight. I’m starting to feel like Jim Garrison: look at the crazy, fat nut, pointing out inconsistencies in an official story – that crackpot. But I’ll take “crackpot” over the human-weasels that say I did this for publicity. Sweet whistling Moses – only a thin person could ever think any fat person would want this much attention called to their size.”

(My apologies for the censorship, Mr. Smith. It’s a word I rarely use, and I don’t want my readers, best known as mom and dad, to go into shock when they read this.)

This is more than just a story about SWA’s poor customer service at this point. It’s a wake-up call to those who haven’t figured out yet that mainstream media can’t always be trusted.

And that is my final word on “Too Fat to Fly,” because even my words are a few more too many on the subject. At this point the horse is more than just dead; it’s a bloated carcass with flies buzzing around the hooves sticking up in the air.

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