Media overload often equals lack of source accountability

Nothing in the papers.

Nothing on the Web.

Time to start flipping channels.

I start at Headline News and keep moving.

Paul Serilla Serilla Warfare

It was somewhere in mid-channel surf that it hit me. I think I may have realized this earlier, but I don't think my brain fully processed the concept until my flipping was interrupted and I stopped on "Entertainment Tonight."

They were doing a segment on Scientology, the group founded by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard in the '50s. There is an ongoing debate on whether or not Scientology can really be considered a religion. As "ET" shoddily tried to explain, this issue has recently come to a head because the German government has been taking steps through law to limit the actions of Scientologists in that country because it sees Scientology as simply a pyramid scheme, not a true faith. Some of the harsher German critics have said that the Scientologists actually have a plan for global domination.

Scientologists have countered that Germany is reverting to the tactics of the Third Reich and is persecuting the group for no reason but their existence. Last week, there was a major pro-Scientology rally in Germany and several of the group's celebrity members attended or spoke via satellite.

While I have my own opinions on this issue and the conduct of the German government and the Scientologists, that is totally immaterial to the real issue: What the hell was "ET" doing covering a real news story? This story has been brewing for years, The New York Times has had extensive coverage, there was a Congressional investigation and frankly I don't think "ET" has any business covering a story of this complexity (not since they lost John Tesh, anyway).

Yes "ET," John Travolta ("Look Who's Talking," "Look Who's Talking Too") and Isaac Hayes (theme to "Shaft," voice of Chef in "South Park") happen to be Scientologists, but you don't send Mary Hart to cover the Mideast peace talks because Adam Sandler made "Happy Gilmore II" and Kareem Abdul-Jabar has a new infomercial.

This "ET" report is just a symptom of the greater problem, the prevalence of illegitimate news sources. You can blame it on tabloid journalism for blurring the lines between news and entertainment in search of a better profit margin. You can point to the perennial favorites of media critics, O.J. Simpson and Princess Di, and say that when gossip column figures jump to the front page, there is bound to be some mixed signals - but that is incomplete.

The truth is there are so many options for your viewing, listing, reading and computing pleasure that the market has become flooded and every outlet wants to become all things to all people. In that process many programs have just tried to take on too much and they look foolish.

For example, I don't care what The Weather Channel thinks about the effect of the cold on the World Series - just tell me if it's going to rain. I also don't care what "MTV News" thinks about the off-year Congressional races, show me some videos. (Remember when MTV had videos?)

But this question of source legitimacy can be more serious. For the last 17 months, former ABC correspondent Peter Arnet has been running around saying that the U.S. Navy accidentally shot down TWA flight 800 over New York. He received this information from an Internet source, one that looked very convincing to the thousands that later visited the site and bought into the explanation. This week, the Web page's author, Ian Goddard, admitted the whole idea was fabricated to foster distrust in the U.S. government, which he believes has been abusing power at the price of individual freedoms.

For months, the families of the victims of that horrible accident have had to live with the possibility that our government killed their loved ones - it's a painful lie with horrible costs.

Simply, Arnet made a mistake that is all too common: trusting a source on appearance instead of delving beneath the surface to see if it has any support. We no longer live in a world where breaking news is carried by paper boys chanting "Extra, extra, read all about it," and we all need to take an extra minute to question not only the merits of the story, but the integrity of the source.

-Paul Serilla can be reached over e-mail at pserilla@umich.edu

11-07-97