Quoting Washington Post/CNN media "critic" Howard Kurtz slamming Headline News for "talking about this constantly on cable for more than a week" and "feasting on this terrible situation," Brad Jacobson (Media Bloodhound, 3/30/09) also cites Kurtz railing against media obsession with octuplet mother Nadya Suleman on CNN: "The media were demonizing her….all the while capitalizing on America's latest soap opera." But, lo and behold, a "Crossfire-like vapid shouting match" couldn't be resisted: Kurtz dedicated an entire segment of this past Sunday's Reliable Sources to a gratuitous pie fight between two players involved in Nadya "Octomom" Suleman's never-ending nationally televised freak [...]
Mar
13
2009
Sensationalism Overwhelms Substance in 'Octomom' Story
By 1 Comment
Women In Media & News guest blogger Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser's examination (3/12/09) of the "media firestorm" that "erupted… when Nadya Suleman gave birth to octuplets" shows that in initial "stories playing on the well-worn 'wow factor'"–like "the AP's piece, posted on Fox News' website, [that] bore a cutesy headline: '8 Is Definitely Enough'"–"basic information was missing: the mother's name, the doctor's name, and the specific medical treatment undergone," and "without that information, any medical ethics concerns remained wholly hypothetical." But then it turns out, eight wasn't enough. The story's focus morphed from medical oddity, to larger ethics questions, to gawking [...]
