I don’t believe that the media is responsible for as much fake news as certain politicians who are in trouble generally claim, although I do think journalistic standards, particularly in South Africa, are not what they were 20 or 30 years ago.  I have written about that too many times to repeat the whole argument here again, but in many instances all that newspapers do is to just reprint press releases that are sent to them.  

What I am talking about though is another aspect and that is the general dumbing down of the media. I understand it in terms of they have businesses to run and sadly, most people these days don’t want to hear intellectual news.  They want to hear about hurricanes, tropical downpours of rain, people navigating the streets in a boat and about the 20 people who have died, all the while ignoring the 40 people who have died on the roads in South Africa that day.  It is all about sensation.  It is all about creating an impression that when a 92% eclipse passes over your head that the sky will at least go gloomy or dark whereas, unless you are in the part of totality, you basically don’t get any darkness at all, although there is a tremendous reduction in the temperature.  

Its all about hyping up a boxing match between one man who is not a boxer and another man who was an absolute champion.  At the end of the day, and as I predicted to all my staff, McGregor stood no chance.  Sure, Mayweather fought his normal fight and cautiously saw what his opponent had to offer, during which time his opponent looked fairly decent, before he clinically dismantled him.  Let’s not forget this was a 40-year-old man who retired two years ago, against a 29 year old man in his absolute peak and despite that massive difference in the young man’s favour, experience still won.  That is because it was his field and that is another reason why we always make the point that you don’t have the expertise to do your own plastic surgery and you don’t have the expertise to do your own Road Accident Fund case.  I thought from the start that McGregor had no chance, despite his massive youth advantage and despite the fact that his opponent was coming out of retirement, because he was getting into a field that is not his.  

The point being though, the media managed to hype this up into one of the greatest events of the world – such that it drowned out any news of any other significance around the world that day.  Two already wealthy men became insanely wealthy and quite honestly I think we all took part in a major con.  The eclipse today, the fight tomorrow and whatever else is cooked up for next week – it is all just, to be honest, trivial nonsense dressed up as actual news when it is nothing of the sort.  The real news like high unemployment continues, people get killed in crime everyday, people die and are maimed on the roads and we distract ourselves from all of it and perhaps we do really want it to distract us.  It is now all about the dumbing down of the media to attract a wider audience and those who are interested in serious news have to look in more specialised areas to find it.