La telebasura: artículo que hice en inglés sobre el tema

Do you think that people are really interested in famous people´s lives? Are gossip programmes and tabloids actually necessary for us? Are journalists allowed to talk about other people no matter the price? 

Life and a professional basketball match are not too different: while a little number of rich, famous people are earning lots of money in a funny way, the others are simply watching and commenting on it. In fact, all of us are used to looking up to them, wondering about a better life, envying their luxurious cars and houses, dreaming of a second chance we were told we weren´t allowed to. Actually, the only way we can be among them is winning the lottery or marrying a rich person. You know: “if you can´t beat them, join them”. 

People need to feel safer, and in a world like ours, full of social problems, distraction is very necessary: a way of running away, an open window that makes our life sweeter. In this sense it´s not unusual that people are interested in famous people´s lives: it´s a chance of being happier. As a matter of fact, while a rich, powerful actor is said to be addicted to drugs, unable to give them up, you stop thinking about it as a common problem. “If you watch it on TV it must be further away from your real life”, lots of viewers will say. But this is a lie we are used to believing in. 

Continuing with this idea, it´s very necessary that a group of programmes can tell us these stories, these lucky lives, these matters. Chat shows, unfortunately, are not a good option. For example: when a pretty, blond haired girl says that she has been in bed with a footballer, society should reject this behaviour, not only because of the situation by itself, but also because of the dangerous example for our children. Everybody else would feel nothing more than shame with this attitude. However, this girl is supposed to be a lucky one, and she will show off her love story, true or false (who cares?), all over these TV programmes. 

When our children are aware of the powerful influence TV programmes have on their way of thinking, it will probably be too late, because all of them will have been brought up in a wrong system of values. This is such a dangerous matter that both parents and teachers are assisting to a new age: now, children are very different from those previous generations and they lack human values, which is a very difficult problem to be solved. 

If excellent TV programmes are very important, extraordinary professionals aren´t less relevant. Nowadays there are many of them. Unfortunately they aren´t so good as we´d like them to be. Money is the only thing they are interested in, and the truth is present only a few times. Lying is the way they fill their tabloids with, and honour and respect are cast away by most of their readers. But all these things aren´t strong enough to make them dissappear. However, there are lots of TV programmes whose contents are so biased that nobody can trust them. 

People enjoy the stories and don´t think of their own really important problems. As far as I am concerned, literature can be a better option, not only because it increases people´s culture and vocabulary, but also because it can make us become more human, happier people.