One topic that is bond to come up as a prompt for some essay is the rise of entertainment in the news. I can see it now; Daily Show this and Colbert that. I know these are valid examples, yet I don't believe any has been taken on in a worth wild fashion. But an example that can, and will, be used is the satiric newspaper The Onion, written up in Reason Magazine by Greg Beato. Billed as the "America's Finest News Source" it is an apologetically crude and hilarious paper. In print or online there is an interesting story behind the print. It is one of the few newspapers to have grown 60% in the past three years and boasts a subscription of over 700,000 a week, more than The Denver Post.
The story here might be the downright honesty in the newspaper. It's offensive headlines and mocking stories have never backed down and delivers week jabs to otherwise sacred cows. Reason argues that it is not anything high tech. While cable news shows have news crawls, flashy segways between stories, and endless video, The Onion provides little in the way of technology. There is no user feedback, few sections and few pictures. Yet the stories are consistently entertaining and compelling. What it supplies is something that must be glossed over in cable news, "candor, irreverence, and a willingness to offend."
There is one argument that is left open in this article, which is humor the enemy of seriousness? For now, yes. Humor is what gets a person to read the news, not understand it. It draws them to it and allows them to stay, not to understand. Jon Stewart might be credited with drawing a new generation to government, but there is nothing that says he has made them understand more, or that they didn't understand in the first place. If he has, it is because he has always had an agenda.
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joshua
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