Letting the media dictate the agenda

I've been aghast at the way the Ross/Brand scandal has been panning out. What should have been a relatively insignificant employment matter has been dominating the media agenda, particularly the print media, for days. Whilst it is news that two top earning BBC performers disgraced themselves and deserve to be sacked, it's not front page news.

Once any story begins to dominate the news agenda bloggers are naturally drawn to the story, even if it's to denounce it as a non-issue (as in this post). It's not stupidity at all but the net result is that the media has ended up determining what we talk about and pronounces on it in as serious a tone as it uses for climate change or the credit crunch.

There are all kinds of interesting avenues to be explored in this story; The power dynamic around a man (Ross) who earns the wage of a hundred journalists at a time when they are laying people off. A man who earns many times more than his "boss" and is above all lines of responsibility; The gender attitudes it has revealed in a pair of men who wear sexual "conquests" like a trophy and use it to taunt Sachs, as if they have somehow sullied his property; The way the media have habitually adopted a tone of sensationalism and disaster no matter what story they are reporting. The list goes on.

My particular favourite is the mystery behind Russell Brand's YouTube apology where he is inexplicably sitting in front of a picture of Stalin. Hilariously, in the BBC broadcast the old man was erased from the frame in exactly the manner of which he himself approved. How odd.

So there's lots of scope for interesting blog posts to be sure and I've read some pretty sweet ones over the last few days. My worry is that we're being led by the nose. Sachs has the story in proportion, why don't we? Comedian Dara O'Briain said on TV the other night "We are now entering day six of man-has-his-feelings-hurt-gate" which seems about right. We can't expect any better from the media - but shouldn't we hold ourselves to higher standards?

I'm not suggesting any mea culpa's here, I've felt the urge just as strongly as everyone else, if it's good enough for Gordon Brown to comment on why not us? I guess because we're meant to have our eyes open to this kind of thing. Mind you it's difficult to post on a story being all out of proportion without contributing to the attention the story accumulates.

I guess what I'm trying to grapple with is that the blogosphere naturally relies on the corporate media for information but needs to make sure it doesn't get sucked down the hole with it. There is a tight relationship between a lot of political blogging (not all though) and the news media, and I suspect that is a good and useful thing, although whether it is or not it's unavoidable.

We need to be able to set our own agenda, and we certainly need to try to develop an independent enough mindset that we can still blog with relevance without simply tailing the media. It seems difficult to get the balance just right and I guess the best way to guard against it is simply to be aware there is an issue, not saying I have any answers here I just think it's worth considering.