Meta-Aware Journalism: Like a ninja, if it is there then I cannot see it.

Media is not aware of itself as a media. It does not reflect a self-critical or self-aware role in either its constitution, composition or as part of an overarching genre. Take for example this news report from the CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2012/03/13/doobie-brothers.html. Is it self-aware of its role as a work of journalism? Does it refer to itself? Address its reader directly? No, nadda and nope.  This article is an example of an average news article, that you could pull up anywhere at any time from any source. We do not see it acting as if it was self-aware. On a whole media, such as the news, is not self-aware.

So, why not? Why is it not aware?

Meta-awareness is disturbing. It is jarring. It is confusing. For most readers of the news this is off-putting. “What the?! Why are you?...Just give me the facts!”. I do not want my media to jump out at me, play with my mind as I confusedly try to comprehend exactly what it is trying to tell me. I do not want to deal with an article that is exploring how it is an article. I do not want to read an article that is critically self-reflecting on itself as a piece of news. If I wanted that I would read Calvino’s book. I want facts. I want the details. I want them now. That’s why I read these articles: for facts, for information. Specifically on events/things that have occurred or are upcoming and I want to know more about.

Media is aware of this fact and thus tries to dish out the facts in a way that promotes easy consumption: the simpler the format the better. Meta-awareness is not a simple format. It promotes thinking about our role as reader/viewer/listener by its self-awareness. This is the focus of meta-awareness. This is not the best way to convey the news to an audience that just wants the facts of an event. Thus we generally see short, clipped, to the point writing in media. They do this because we just want an objective telling of an event (though media is not always objective), we just want factual content (though it is not always so) when looking reading our news articles. We just want info.

For what purpose does media, in journalism that would be the news, have for being self-aware? In general, being meta-aware would actual impede the information machine. Therefore, we do not see meta-awareness in media, usually. This makes perfect sense when we consider that our role as the readers/viewers/and listeners is to consume these facts, take them into consideration, and form opinions about them to then gossip about the next day with the people around us. The role of the journalist or media source in general is to provide us with these tidbits of information to take home, tear-down, build-up, explore, connect with or ignore as we see fit. It is just giving us information to keep us informed on what is going on, what is changed and what is changing in the world around us.