Image of the Barmah Research and Development Center in Damascus, Syria before an airstrike by forces from the United States, Great Britain and France on April 14, 2018. Satellite Image 2018 DigitalGlobe via USA TODAY NETWORK/Sipa USA/PA Images. All rights reserved. If infotainment, a portmanteau of information and entertainment, is indeed a twenty-first century phenomenon, then one must wonder whether the Syrian war’s world coverage, best championed by the New York Times, follows the rules of good reporting or good storytelling.
If the ascendency of Game of Thrones and other high-concept shows has informed us on anything about our televisual consumption habits, it is that the Netflix Generation loves the spectacle. Expensive. Fast-paced. Full of action. How could old people watch excruciatingly-slow silent movies?
With our decreasing attention spans, it is no wonder that our entertainment needs leak over our news consumption. This need for sensationalism that is worth one’s time is problematic, especially with regards to Syria, whose conflict must be solved, contrary to television shows, in as few episodes as possible.
