As I get in my car at 5:00 A.M. and turn the radio on, what is the first thing I hear that early in the morning? It wasn’t about health care, the possibility of the Olympics coming to Chicago, or about the economy. Surprisingly, the headlines of the morning were about a celebrity, David Letterman. Apparently on the previous night’s show, Letterman shared with his audience the fact that an individual had placed a letter in his car that stated that this individual knew a variety of “bad things” Letterman had done and that it would destroy Letterman’s career. The individual then proceeded to say in the letter that he wanted $2 million from Letterman in order to not come out to the media about the “bad things” mentioned in the letter. At this point, Letterman also shared with his audience what these allegations were. Apparently, Letterman had sex with a woman on his staff at the show and this individual thought he could benefit monetarily from this incident. Even though the talk show host was actually trying to be serious for once, his audience still laughed the entire time because this incident was providing ENTERTAINMENT.
Needless to say, this incident would not only provide entertainment/news for the rest of that day, but will also continue for days or weeks to come. This is just another of the thousands of examples of media losing its credibility of bringing important news to the public. A man had sex with a woman. So what? I do not really think this justifies taking over the news for days just to report something that is not out of the ordinary.
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I agree that I do not believe that this incident should be clogging up media outlets with its lack of impact on the rest of us. However it is somewhat intriguing because while what Letterman did was not immoral, (because I don't even want to touch that issue) but unethical because he is a man who is in a position of power. By sleeping with women who essentially work for him it jeopardizes his judgment, and ultimately his career. If this were a political figure he would be questioned in the same manner, and more than likely be asked to step down (unless you're Bill, then it’s cool). However that is not the story being portrayed here. The discussion is about the extortionist instead of Dave's future with CBS.
ReplyDeleteI understand your frustration though because in the end, David Letterman is not a politician, and is all over the media right now for this incident. And it was pretty funny hearing the crowd laughing during that serious story that Dave was discussing. You can't expect Lucy from Kentucky and Jerry from Wyoming to act any different though; they were simply there to laugh, and had no idea that Dave was going to drop a bomb like that on them.