Mark Parent
Opinions Editor

Our media culture is a joke; and it’s not even that funny.

For a moment, think about all of the stories you’ve been exposed to over the last week.  Odds are, very few of you will think of the stock market’s fall amid uncertainties about the Chinese economy, or that Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras resigned and called another election or that Hillary Clinton’s email scandal is intensifying after over 300 classified documents were found on her bathroom-stored server.

Yet, I’m willing to wager that plenty of people know that Caitlyn Jenner might be charged with manslaughter, or that Kelvin Benjamin is out for the season or that Donald Trump is still running for President.

Is something wrong with this picture?  I think so.

Perhaps the most illustrative example of this culture can be found in the saga of Cecil the Lion.  Yes, the sweet little animal whose death sent shockwaves around the entire world a mere few weeks ago.

Now, let me be clear, the circumstances of Cecil the Lion’s death are awful.  Trophy hunting is a sick sport that should be rightfully condemned by everyone.

Nonetheless, the media chose to invest such a massive amount of time and energy in this story that others were dismissed in the process.  During this time period, the media could have covered the Planned Parenthood scandal involving the selling of aborted fetal body parts, the drought in California or the fate of the Iran nuclear agreement in Congress.

Also, the media failed to communicate one simple point about Cecil the Lion in its reporting: he’s a wild animal, not a stuffed animal.  In Zimbabwe, a country most Americans can’t point out on a map, lions are viewed with contempt.  In fact, in a New York Times Op-Ed, native Zimbabwean Goodwell Nzou argues, “No lion has ever been beloved, or granted an affectionate nickname.  They are objects of terror.”

Of course, the media wants you to forget that lions are viewed as mortal threats to native Zimbabweans.  They also don’t want you to know that Zimbabwe is a terrible place where the outside world is more likely to mourn a lion than the sorry state of the average Zimbabwean.  As the Minneapolis Post reports, Zimbabwe is ranked 172nd  in the world in human development, has a life expectancy of 52, is home to over 500,000 AIDS orphans and hosts 1.7 million people who are living with AIDS.

Certainly, this is worth crying over, Jimmy Kimmel.

But, we shouldn’t be surprised.  This is what our media culture has sadly become.

It is, in effect, an offshoot of social media, selfishness and pettiness. In order to make a quick buck, formerly reputable news organizations have stooped to the level of TMZ and done great damage to American culture in the process.

Let me give you another example of this trend. Just last week, The New York Times ran a story on how intense the working environment is at Amazon, the online retail giant. The article focused on how Amazon’s atmosphere is incredibly intense and hyper-competitive.  Employees could even be expected to work as much as 85 hours a week.  Also, the story was quick to enlist the help of many former (most likely disgruntled) employees to complain about the culture of conflict employed by Amazon that emphasized constructive criticism in order to improve its products and overall efficiency.

Obviously, The New York Times had no business running a major story on corporate lightweights that are unhappy with how demanding their workplace is.  For instance, if you ask any young stockbroker, doctor or lawyer they’ll probably tell you that an 80-hour week isn’t all that out of the ordinary, and that large amounts of pressure are just a part of the job.  In fact, The New York Times, frankly, seems to shame Amazon for its success.

And, just so everyone knows, if Amazon operated its business in the same manner that The New York Times did, then Amazon would not be a company breaking new ground in the business world, but rather a company struggling to stay afloat.

With that being said, I believe it’s important to focus on the media’s most beloved obsession: politics. The media loves to dissect every word that a politician speaks, writes, tweets or implies. Nowadays, a single gaffe can ruin the dreams and ambitions of a truly decent person seeking to serve the public in a positive manner.

And, to be honest, the public has had enough of it.

Currently, two presidential frontrunners are far from presidential.  Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, espouses policies that I believe would wreck the American economy and do permanent damage to America’s standing in the world. Yet, even I admire his willingness to scold the media for asking off-subject questions and his laser-focus on the issues facing the country.  It turns out that his appeal is translating to the broader public, too.  He recently outpolled Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, and consistently draws tens of thousands of supporters to his rallies across the country.

The other politically incorrect candidate, Donald Trump, has made it a habit of saying offensive things to a number of key demographic groups.  This habit, however, has only translated into rising poll numbers in nearly every testable category.  It makes no sense.

Then again, the reason it doesn’t make any sense is because we’re living in a warped media culture that constantly tells us what we can and cannot say.  In this world, we’re supposed to walk on eggshells, avoid micro-aggressions and never say how we really feel.  After all, we don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings or have a real discussion about things that matter.

So, it’s our duty as students and future business, community and political leaders to stand up and demand more from the press.  If we don’t, then we run the real risk of living in a society that cares more about political correctness than political results.