Interview with Prof Annerio

I recently had the opportunity to talk about media literacy with Maggie Annerino, professor of communications at Grand Valley State University. Her insights into the effects of the 24 hour television news on our society as a whole were enlightening and eye-opening.

One of the topics we discussed was the role of the around-the-clock cable news channels. Professor Annerino believes they talk too much. Although they do perform the important function of informing us, they often over-inform, or inform us of things that are not actually important. Thus when there is not enough news, they have to stretch for material to fill the time. An example she provided is that in the days leading up to each of the presidential debates, the commentators quickly exhausted any relevant topic, which inevitably leads into abundant speculation. Theorizing and analyzing superficial or unimportant topics takes over when legitimate subjects get tired. While the news does perform a vital role in our society by informing us, they do not do so perfectly when they present irrelevant issues on the same level as a genuinely important subject.

The news media serve many crucial functions in our society, but they are not without their drawbacks. As Professor Annerino pointed out, when there is nothing important enough to report, it's not necessarily good to just fill the time for the sake of filling it; in other words, sometimes no news is good news.