Freedom is Paramount by Alex Williamson Freedom of the press means giving the people what they want. Here is some breaking news for all those who rely solely on the Yale International Forum for their news: Princess Diana of England died in a fiery car wreck outside of Paris. Di and her Egyptian lover were fleeing photographers when their car crashed. It turns out that the driver was drunk and thousands of people around the world are now grieving for the princess. This is really all that needs to be said about the whole affair. Perhaps an obituary would be helpful and a biography somewhere down the line is not such a bad idea either. Some people might argue that all the media attention that is focused on the whole affair is colossal overkill. All of these media resources, the argument goes, could be devoted to more important issues like crime ,world hunger, or the environment. The media could supposedly devote more airtime or column space to culturally enriching subjects. Unfortunately, people are obviously interested in the fiery death of a princess and they are willing to pay to learn more about it. Any paper or network that did not cover Diana’s death like the Second Coming of Christ would have missed out on an advertising mother lode. The lavish attention paid to media spectacles that are entertaining but not terribly important reflects the changing dynamic of the media. Increased competition is forcing some news providers to cover ever more sensationalistic stories and this is an inherently good thing. The media’s fixation on news spectacles like the death of Diana or the OJ Simpson trial are more a symptom of increased competition than anything else. Cable and satellite dishes mean that people around the world have more TV channels to choose from. Magazine markets are also becoming saturated and the Internet offers even more choices. Many newer channels and magazines have responded to this challenge by specializing. International Cod Fisherman Weekly, for instance, probably did not devote much attention to the Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya Harding story. Other news sources, however, have taken the opposite approach. These larger establishments must try and secure a larger share of the audience by appealing to the lowest common denominator. The tragic downfall of the rich and famous will always attract people. Stories about endangered species simply do not attract as much attention as media circuses like the Lorena Bobbit trial. People generally notice the harmful downside of increased competition in the news industry and they are right to complain. However, this competition has brought great rewards. Stories about endangered species might not make the evening news or the front page but there are now plenty of cable channels that serve up a healthy diet of nature shows. This is a big improvement over the old days when there were only three networks and a few national magazines. Imagine trying to combine the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, C-SPAN, ESPN, and CNN all into one network. Such a network would please nobody by trying to please everybody. The public might have to endure shows like Friends on Safari or The Simpson’s Live Coverage of the Senate Subcommittee on Plant Food Standards. It’s better to bear the sensationalism and enjoy the multitude of news options than to return to the bad old days of homogenized news.

People Should Exercise Self-Restraint by Lisa Hasday Yalies, here’s an experiment for you: go to any residential college dining hall, position yourself near the drop-off point for campus publications, and watch as students file in and pick up (or not pick up) the various and plentiful newspapers and magazines available for their reading pleasure. Chances are that the stack of Yale International Forum magazines will retain its original height for days or even weeks at a time. But be careful not to avert your eyes for even just a few seconds or you’ll miss the comings and goings of Rumpus, Yale’s one and only campus tabloid. If Rumpus isn’t, as it claims, “the only publication at Yale about stuff at Yale,” it’s certainly one of the most well-read and most talked-about publications on campus. No matter how intellectual we all think we are, no matter how much we scoff at those who subscribe to the National Enquirer, we Yalies are just like the rest of them: we love gossip, we love scandal, we love the “fifty most beautiful people” issue. I’m certainly no exception. Waiting at the dentist’s office, I will dig through Time and Newsweek to get to the People magazines underneath. One of my favorite sections of the Sunday New York Times is Styles, where I read about how newlyweds met and which celebrities made appearances at which charity benefits. Why do we (or at least those of us willing to admit it) have such a fascination for stories about other people’s personal lives, stories we really have no reason to know or care about? According to Janna Malamud Smith, the author of Private Matters, these types of stories are appealing because they allow their readers to work out problems in their own lives. The result is a kind of “psychic pleasure.” Hence, it’s understandable why the late Princess Diana so captured the public imagination. Diana’s story engaged us because her life seemed to be full of drama and struggle: her “rags-to-riches” ascent to royalty, her loveless marriage with Prince Charles, and, in the last months of her life, her apparent newfound love for millionaire Dodi Fayed. Was she making the right decision, we wanted to know? Did she truly love him? Would their relationship lead to happiness? It’s hard to resist pondering these questions and others like them, especially when almost every newspaper and television news program in the world is speculating about them with us. As difficult as it is, however, we must make a concerted effort to restrain our temptations to salivate over every tidbit of juicy information that comes our way. If the public exercises a kind of self-censorship, then the media will follow suit and so will the paparazzi. We should follow the example of Deslyn Johnson, 27, a South London woman, who was quoted in an Associated Press article: “Ever since [Diana’s] death, I’ve forbidden myself from buying magazines that feed on my appetite to know more about other people’s private lives.” Let us stop the media frenzy by stopping ourselves.