HOW KYLIE JENNER SAVED THE FUTURE OF NEWS.

IF there’s one good thing Kylie Jenner has done for humanity this year, it’s sending Florida news anchor John Brown into an on-air meltdown about the world’s daily coverage of the Kardashians, changing the news scene forever.

The famous teen is an American reality television personality, socialite and model. Most well known for her role on her family’s reality television show, Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Kylie Jenner is one of the most influential teenagers of 2015.

“My walk-off was simply a reaction to how many times the Kardashian family had been in the news lately for things that aren’t really newsworthy” the Good Morning Orlando host shared.

The Kardashian-Jenner Klan collectively share over 300 million fans on their social media accounts alone, with their latest reality television show reaching over 2.5 millions views on its premier earlier this year.

“The thing that bothers me the most is when people know more about families on TV than they know about their own families” Brown added.  

Brown’s meltdown has since gone viral, with over 3 million hits on YouTube and the story trending #1 nationally on Facebook for a day.

While the anchor has received worldwide praise from fans and Kardashian-haters alike, the real accomplishment by Brown is the awareness he’s raised in the wake of his meltdown.

There’s no denying that the distinction between hard, relevant, front cover news such as global warming and the financial crisis has become blurred with the irrelevant and obnoxious celebrity ‘A Big Bang Theory Romance’ and ‘How I Deal With Having Big Boobs’ headlines over the past decade.

British-based philosopher and writer, Alain de Botton, in his latest works states that ‘the hierarchy’ and ‘architecture’ of news has broken down.

“It’s very important that important things are popular…politicians need the population to have their attention focused on the really important issues… this is breaking down” de Botton claimed.

Statistics shown through news organizations such as the BBC’s web traffic show that the greater public would rather read stories about the  ‘Duchess of Cambridge due to Give Birth in July’ and ‘David Bowie Comeback Makes Top 10 Singles Chart’ rather than the humanitarian crisis or five people dying in a clan shooting in Africa.

This type of behavior is what psychologists refer to as ‘fluency’, the way people feel while they’re engaged in something. People prefer thoughts that are easily generated; such as environments that are familiar and situations that we are comfortable in.

Head of Staff and former journalist for Network 10, Tim Collits blames the 24-hour news cycle for this deterioration of the hierarchy.

“Genuine news can and does give way to your Kardashian news… your popular celebrity doing something irrelevant will always fill the news bulletins,” he agreed.

“ …The 24/7 news cycle has seen our politicians, activists and celebrities speak in five second grabs because [news organisations] know the more detailed answer to the question wont get to air.”

“That leaves the viewer wanting more but getting less” Mr Collits finished.

Senior Editor for The Atlantic, Derek Thompson couldn’t agree more ‘The more attention-starved we feel, the more we thirst for stimuli that are familiar,’ he writes.

Thompson explains why audiences around the world lack an interest in ‘hard news’, but will try their best to deny it.

Mr. Thompson refers to a survey conducted by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, where thousands of viewers around the world were asked what sort of news was most important to them.

The outcomes were relatively un-surprising, with international, economic and political news trumping celebrity and ‘fun’ news.

The inconvenient truth for these thousands of viewers, is that when the violent splintering of Iraq made major headlines and front-page news in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and more, it was celebrity news such as the World Cup and fun news like the most popular YouTube games of that month, that received the most views.

When asked about the uproar following John Brown’s on-air meltdown, and the number of comments from viewer’s ‘begging’ for ‘proper news’, Thompson explained:

“There are values and then there’s behavior, and sometimes values don’t predict behavior…Thinking that Syria is important to cover doesn’t mean anybody wants to read Syria stories”.

While it’s indisputable that audiences now hold an unwieldy power over editors and the newsroom, one question still remains: how well equipped is society to know what sort of news it really needs to be confronted by?

Should we, instead of mindlessly clicking on the same old, sensationalised and dull celebrity ‘non-stories’ that newsroom elites are so quick to frown upon, begin to redefine what it means to be a celebrity?

There is a widely spread belief that celebrities’ lives and actions cannot possibly be admired when they themselves make very little contribution to the larger picture.

The truth is, society needs celebrities to look up to, fuel our ambitions, and validate our personal beliefs and development.

What viewers should take away from on-air meltdowns by well-regarded morning show hosts is that celebrity news cannot simply be ignored or condemned by the media and public alike.

The role of the modern media market should not be to condemn our personal interest in celebrities, but to cease the sensationalisation of the stories in which they appear.

By providing consumers with ordinary people doing remarkable things, which society should be looking up to, the media can re-shape what it means to become a celebrity.

Celebrity news should be a serious and respectable medium through which we learn more than we currently are from trying to keep up with the Kardashians.