With the recent “not guilty” verdict of the George Zimmerman trial and the large amount of people arguing about the case, I couldn’t help but find it strange that so many people found it important. I’m not saying the loss of a human life isn’t important and tragic, but why this instance? There were just as many other murders going on at the time of the Zimmerman trial, but for some reason this specific case seemed to captivate the nation.

The only reason I could think of was the large amount of news coverage on the case. Every major news network focused large chunks of their program time just to talk about Trayvon Martin and  Zimmerman. The large amount of coverage was completely unnecessary and its only purpose was to pull in as many viewers as possible.Therein lies the problem with most news coverage.

Most major news networks will exaggerate the importance of a story to the point where it appears to divide the nation, and unfortunatly, the only reason for the uproar is just so the networks can get more viewers.

For example, due to the large amount of hype surrounding the Zimmerman trial, CNN’s were up 47% (about 672,00 views Mon-Sun,) in July. The week after the trial ended, though, CNN’s ratings quickly plummeted (about 451,00 views Mon-Sun,) as did most other major news networks.

What is even worse is that there are many cases that are just as important that don’t go as publicized just because they won’t draw in viewers. When the Zimmerman trial was going on, we didn’t hear anything about the Russian national who was hacking into NASDAQ (an american stock exchange) services or even about the Tuscon man who was sentenced to 135 years in jail for defrauding thousands of people. But thank goddness we know everything about Zimmerman’s personal life and that we have a picture of Martin flipping off a camera.

There are even cases of news stations giving innaccurate information to viewers to scare them. During the 2009 swine flu scare, Fox was reporting that the swine flu was officially a pandemic. But then nothing ever came of the crisis. Everyone forgot the swine flu scare even happened. But during that brief period of time, people were glued to their television sets just to get the latest information.

News networks need to actually start reporting daily news instead of following trending topics just to create media hype and get more viewers. This will cut back on the public distress and frenzy. The viewers, on the other hand, should start taking everything they see reported with a grain of salt and try to keep a level head.