Two months ago I wrote about Eliot Spitzer’s highly publicized sex scandal. I did it light heartedly, because to be frank, I didn’t really care all that much . Now just this past week, another New York politician, republican congressman Vito Fossella was the headline darling after it was discovered he had a “love child” from an extra-marital affair. I don’t really care about that too much either, and no, I’m not going to try to make a joke of the family value spokesman’s fall from grace as I did with Spitzer – it’s too damn easy. No, what I want to comment on is how quickly this news story disappeared from the scrutiny of the press. I defy you to find a paragraph about Fossella anywhere.
I understand that the Chinese earthquake or the Myanmar cyclone were more newsworthy, but that still does not explain how quickly Fossella fell off the media earth. It raises interesting questions. Somebody somewhere seemed to have decided that an out of wedlock baby was far below an expensive call girl relationship on some sort of scandal rating index. Can we deduce that it was “society” that made this “ruling”? Did you and I by some sort of secret society tabulation decide that its newsworthiness was a weak step sister to Spitzer’s hooker? Was the disappearance related to internet hits? Letters to the editor? John Stewart or Letterman references? I find it more fascinating than the actual scandals how it is decided what is reported and how, and as in this case, for how long.
What is said about Fossella is far less interesting to me than who makes the decision to say anything or to not say anything. I picture a harried Perry White type of editor checking an Einsteinian formula to determine how many inches needs be devoted to: congressman/sex scandal/New York/Blue state/ Italian American/Republican/DUI.
If e equals excess, well, never mind, you get the point. If not deciding ultimately becomes a decision, then choosing not to comment becomes a very loud editorial comment. I wish Marshall McCluhan was still alive. I’d pay great sums of money to hear his take on media in the 21st century.
By Myron Gushlak
