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The Media is Nothing More Than a Bad News Whore!
by Gary ~ April 28th, 2009
Once upon a time the media was considered a “friend” that would inform and educate us about what was going on in the world. It used to consist of a balance between good and bad news. But not any more!
Now the media is completely obsessed with scaring and frightening and warning us, mostly about things that are NOWHERE near as bad as what it portrays or are NEVER going to happen anyway.
Remember the Y2K bug that was going to spell the end of the use of computers on this planet? What about bird flu? What about this latest FEAR it is spreading on swine flu?
In its absolutely DESPERATE and mad scramble for ratings against all other rivals, almost every media outlet – principally the electronic media of television and radio, but also newspapers – is sensationalising the so-called economic disaster-meltdown-crash-whatever and ramming it right down everybody’s throat at every available opportunity. I swear, if I hear that jingoistic claptrap “these harsh economic times” one more time – which I invariably will some time today, then I will switch off that media outlet for a week!
In my opinion, the media is DRIVING the economic collapse. Now why do I say that? Well, put simply, if you tell enough people often enough that things are REALLY, REALLY bad, then guess what? Things become REALLY, REALLY bad! A perception is created and the prophesy becomes fulfilling.
I have reached the stage now where I watch only the first three items of “news” on TV of an evening. If three out of three are bad news, negative news or endless warnings about bird-flu, terrorism, swine-flu, the MELTING global economy, disasters of flood, famine, drought or the usual raft of plane crashes, train smashes or road crashes, then I just switch off.
Like so many other people I am shunning this sort of news. Who bloody needs it? I certainly DON’T!
If they could only understand it, the idiot editors of these forms of media are really destroying their own livelihoods by endlessly feeding us this NEGATIVE end-of-the-world tripe that they just won’t let up about.
Apart from all the above my least favourite so-called “news” item is when an elderly person gets bashed (a fairly regular occurence in the lawless city of Perth, Western Australia in which I live) or an innocent person minding their own business is “glassed” or beset upon by a gang of thugs and we have to be confronted by gory pictures of broken faces with eyes blackened, noses broken, heads gashed and stitched back together – all done at the hands of some mindless moron whose pea-brain has been addled by drugs.
Then, of course, the news media absolutely LOVES and gets right into the faces of those people who are weeping openly at the loss of a loved one or a home burnt down or destroyed in some other way. The news cameras just LOVE to zoom in on this and get right in these people’s faces to portray REAL human grief. For Christ-sake give these people some PRIVACY in their periods of grief!
The media has become a WHORE!
So many people are now switching this media RUBBISH off. And why wouldn’t you? It is too predictable, forced on to us far too often and it is way too graphic. Negative, negative and more NEGATIVE!
Nobody needs a dose of this every hour, on the hour, or splattered all over the first 10 pages of the newspaper. Why are we being subjected to it? And why is it being ramped up the way that it is? Do we need to be held in a state of perpetual fear? No wonder so many people are suffering DEPRESSION! What is the point?
Warning – media! You are flirting with your own inevitable deaths.
Enter the internet, where YOU can decide what YOU want to watch or read or listen to. If it’s too bad then at the click of a mouse you can go somewhere else – places like websites or social media sites like Twitter.
Zap – teleportation to a better place! Yes, I KNOW that you can switch off a TV or radio but…
… you must realise that we have all been “conditioned” to watch and listen to these things without discernment. We just watch and we listen. And in comes the NEGATIVE – like a steam-roller to squash you into submission.
There is no way in the world that I am going to put up with the utter garbage that these traditional news media outlets are foisting upon us all. NO WAY! Like so many others I’m tuning O-U-T!
Being subjected with endless negativism all the time does nothing to help anyone. I figure that if things get THAT bad, somebody is going to tell me anyway, so why should I take any notice of any of it and ruin my day? All it will do is harm my mind. I don’t need that and neither do YOU!
You can fight back against these media whores who will offer up any sensationalistic GARBAGE just to get headlines. MOST of what they say and write is utter dribble anyway. Switch off, filter, tune out. You don’t need the negativity, the scare-mongering, the fear, the trauma, the drama – it’s all so unneccesary and damaging to your mind. Your life will be so much better without it all.
Dump it. You don’t need it. These days, unfortunately, the media is nothing more than a bad news whore!
Do you agree with me or disagree? Tell me what you think. Don’t hold back – let it rip!
STOP PRESS:
LEARN A ‘STEP-BY-STEP’ APPROACH TO MAKING MONEY ON THE INTERNET!
April 28th, 2009 at 6:02 am
[...] Internet Marketing Temple of Learning for Newbies placed an observative post today on The Media is Nothing More Than a Bad News Whore!Here’s a quick excerptOnce upon a time the media was considered a “friend” that would inform and educate us about what was going on in the world. It used to consist of a balance between good and bad news. But not any more! Now the media is completely obsessed with scaring and frightening and warning us, mostly about things that are NOWHERE near as bad as what it portrays or are NEVER going to happen anyway. Remember the Y2K bug that was going to spell the end of the use of computers on this planet? Wha [...]
April 28th, 2009 at 11:04 am
I’m sure it won’t surprise you that I’ve popped over from the Lair to offer my opinion…
Yet again, I think that this all stems from our upbringing and the attitudes of those around us. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you all about my rather lengthy post on this subject over at Hilary’s blog a while ago.
Obviously I can’t speak for the rest of the world, but here in the UK, I invite you to look at the schedule of television listings for a week. I don’t buy those listings magazines because I rarely watch TV, but on the occasion that I do flick through to see whether there’s anything to watch, all I see are soaps or programmes of a similar nature where people behave without morals, without standards, and without any form of decency to those around them. Or we have ‘reality’ shows where people are either subjected to more abuse, or are portrayed as idiots or incompetent for the pleasure of the viewer. I need only refer you to the annual institution of Big Brother (again, apologies to those of you not in the UK). Every year they go out looking for the most television-worthy (for that read ‘most likely to create headlines’) people to then put them in a house and subject them to all sorts of tasks etc. The whole thing is basically a voyeurs dream – watch people have a mental breakdown live on television. And then we wonder why the children of today (oh god, here I go on my soapbox – and I would like to add that I’m only 28!) behave in the way that they do.
But – why do these children watch this stuff in the first place? Let’s see. Television nowadays has become the free and convenient babysitter. Can’t be bothered to talk to your child and try to give them some decent stimulation? Plonk them in front of the drivel on television. How many families sit down at a table and eat together in the evenings? Too many people are just shovelling microwave meals into their children and themselves, with no thought to teaching manners at a table or anything like that. So children grow up malnourished, ill-educated, and with no concept of reality. And then we wonder why so many people just end up on benefits. “Oh, but that’s how life is in the soaps” – yes, but don’t you want something better than that?! Oh, my bad – you have to work for it, and that appears to be a four-letter word.
Referring back to my comment on Hilary’s blog – in this country it’s a damn sight easier to just get pregnant, and then get given a house and all manner of benefits. There is no incentive to those of us that want to stand on our own two feet. I could get started on the education system & how much it costs to go to university these days, but I fear that would be a whole new post. Scrap that, it would be an entire book. What, and this isn’t so far?! Yes, I know…
Anyway. My point being that with so many of these things, it all starts in the home with the family, the upbringing, and the shared norms and values. If you as a family value sitting in front of the TV with a takeaway while glued to the latest episode of some soap over providing a nutritious, home-prepared meal & then some education and guidance to your children, then guess what values they will take through to their later life?
Everything is sensationalised these days (and yes, I realise that sentence is also adding to it!). Again, looking at these programmes, there is always some kind of drama going on. So people that grow up watching this believe that there had to be drama and fuss in everything going on, and they tend to live their lives accordingly. I could give some personal experiences of that but I’m wary of who may read this and unusually for me I don’t wish to cause too much offence. Suffice to say that I have seen first hand how some people have to create all sorts of drama and fuss in their lives to try to make themselves feel important.
The media merely follows this trend. The advertisers that provide most of the income to these media outlets demand visibility for their products (after all, that’s what advertising is all about), so the more sensational the story, the more likely the viewer will be exposed to that advertisers’ information. We’re bombarded with millions of bits of information every day, so there is constant competition for our attention.
I don’t watch the news or listen to the radio, in fact I seem to live in my own happy little world of purple deviance. It was only yesterday through talking to colleagues that I learned about this whole swine flu thing. Why worry about these things? We’re all going to die someday, so while I’m still here I plan on enjoying my life and making the most of it, not living in some terror-stricken state that the aliens are going to come down and take me back or some other nonsense.
On that note, I’m off to make some tea. Yes, you’ll be pleased to know that for now, I have finished…although as always I’m sure I’ll be back with more!!
PMW on top of her soapbox. Hmm, you all look really small from this great height!
April 28th, 2009 at 11:06 am
Hey Gary
Good to see you are in ranting mode again – couldn’t have said it better myself (though I might have changed the odd word!)
I am so fed up of the news media, that like you I have stopped watching and listening. I don’t have time for a daily newspaper but I generally listen to the news on the radio in a morning and hear the brief news between the music if I am in the car.
I have much better things to do with my time than listen to or watch what is being given us. I have a choice and I too am using that choice to turn it off!
I just hope that we can get enough people to start saying NO to the way that the news is being reported and if enough people turn off, the powers that be might sit up and take notice.
I was interviewed by MORI polls last week – what a pity they didn’t have any questions about the media – though I was asked about schools – perhaps I should have been harsher!
There used to be a programme on British TV when I was young called something like ‘Why don’t you turn off your television and do something less boring instead’.
Perhaps that’s what we all need to do now.
Well said!
Hilary
April 28th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
@ Nikki – I see you are also in “rant mode” – good for you! I particularly liked this bit:
Yep – we have exhausted all the usual suspects of fear and loathing so something NEW has had to be thrown in our faces to keep us “on our toes” – swine flu. Now, I ask you, is that a hideously fearful name? What does it conjure? That we will develop a snout and start a grunting cough?
Sure, 150 people in Mexico may have died from some disease. But I’ll bet that more than 150 people died in car crashes in that country in a similar time to this – wait for it – PANDEMIC!
The media will ride this SWINE FLU PANDEMIC all the way from the continental shelf right in to the shore. Fear, loathing and worry – that is what the media salivates over. Oh, and don’t even get me started on the UTTER CRAP that TV stations offer for (duh) “entertainment.” Only the dullest of dull people find that detritus entertaining. I may come back to that when you go for round 2 yourself. Well ranted Nix!
Gary
April 28th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
@ Hilary – thanks for your comments Hils. Indeed, like you, I am switching off and turning off. I only get the newspaper for the sports section now and even that has become sensationalistic mumbo-jumbo.
Just the other week they wrote something about a football player that was completely false and then the very next day retracted it. I thought – “what a bloody waste of two entire pages” but moreso, what a waste of MY time to read it.
I now take note of the names of the “story-tellers.” If somebody write some concocted, invented junk then I just stop reading their rubbish articles. What is the point? Whenever they go on about “informed sources” or whatever you know that there is so much BS woven into the article that it is almost invariably all fantasy with very little basis in fact.
They say that NEGATIVE news sells but I think the media has gone WAY too far. This constant trash that we are being subjected to will be the death-knell of these media “reports.” People are doing what you and me and Nikki and so many others are now doing – turning away from them and only paying scant regard to what is served up.
Gary
April 28th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Hi Gary,
Amen, Amen Amen! You hit the nail on the head – the media sensationalizes the news and focuses on the negativity because #1 It gets your attention with the shock factor #2 It sells.
They don’t care about reporting the good things that are going on in the world, because those things don’t create buzz or attention, and they don’t sell their advertising. $$$
What you focus on expands, and if we as people are constantly focusing on the negativity fed to us by the media, then those problems will grow and grow.
If, on the other hand, we focus on the positive things that are happen, and what we can do to fix the problem, then we are on our way to a solution.
You and I have talked about this several times before, and I’ve turned off the radio, the news, the markets – I don’t even watch them any more, because they just make me depressed!
(I think the worst job in the world would to be a reporter! What a nightmare! lol)
And why should I let those things ruin my perfectly beautiful day, or my time with my family, or the great projects that I am working on in my business?
Adam
April 28th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Adam – well put, my friend. Even the music channels have hourly news and we seem to be subjected to the same loopy junk every hour, on the hour, day after day.
See you in Vegas dude!
Gary
April 30th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Well said, Gary – and indeed, Nikki, Hils & Adam.
I think it’s important for people to appreciate that this isn’t about putting the blinkers on and saying “I’m alright, Jack.”
Nobody’s trying to pretend that all’s right with the world, or to turn a blind eye to suffering and tragedy. For instance, despite Nikki’s jocular claim to live in her ‘own happy little world of purple deviance’, it’s obvious from her wise words that she’s not oblivious to reality.
No, it’s a matter of trying to re-establish a balance in the – necessarily limited – daily information we receive about the world, so that our outlook doesn’t get skewed.
A view of the world based on what we see on the TV news is not a balanced one. In fact, it might be enough to unbalance a society, let alone the economy… Next thing we know, kids could be carrying knives and guns, and passers-by could be wary of stooping to help a fallen child for fear of being suspected of paedophilia!
There’s so much good going on in the world, and it’s important to recognise and celebrate it, for everyones’ sake. And we don’t have to be living in Cloud-Cuckoo Land to do that.
Of course, our realities are as subjective as they are respective, and unavoidably selective. But we should be wary of passing the responsibilty of that selection to anyone else, particularly the media.
For a long time now, I’ve been very much aware that the media are not bringing us ‘the main points of the news’; they’re making a tiny selection of events, based on their own agenda. And what a cynical one it can be.
As you say, the internet is such a blessing in this regard – for the first time, we can all set our own agenda, aggregate our own ‘news feeds’, and, hopefully, do it responsibly to construct a reasonably accurate picture.
It’s the disingenuousness, the duplicity which annoys me as much as anything. The media pass so much stuff off as news reported in the public interest, when truthfully it’s just more so-called ‘Reality TV’, voyeuristically capitalising on misfortune, serving conveniently-boxed vicarious tragedy for our catharsis, and nurturing schadenfreude. It’s ‘human interest’ porn; the prurient masquerading as the pertinent. And it’s so pervasive that we sometimes find ourselves accepting it. Even TV documentaries are turning into freak-shows and voyeurfests.
We’re not only deprived and degraded by all this; we’re being insulted by the assumption that we’ll fall for it.
So I agree that we should make sure that we’re not duped. We should stand up against it all, and refuse to accept it as the true representation it pretends to be.
By the way, I don’t believe that the flu scare was named, or thrown in our faces, to scare us or to keep us on our toes; but it’s certainly being used to keep people on the edge of their couch seats, and the media are milking it for a lot more than it’s worth. Apparently flu kills 36,000 people every year just in the USA, which puts things in perspective a bit. But only last night, I watched a spokesperson trying to convey sensible information in the face of repeated enquiries as to whether we are officially facing a PANDEMIC – never mind the victims, can we use the P-word yet please?
Having said all that (has the GazzMan started a pandemic of prolificacy?) I’m now worrying about Nikki’s even more sensational reference to the possibility of “the aliens” taking her back… Are you merely on loan, Nix? I thought you were local. We need you here!
James
May 1st, 2009 at 1:31 am
Every time the economy takes a dumper the news folks grasp onto something that makes us forget our government is trillions of dollar in debt.
Then we get to watch all the sheeple (sheep + people) follow the main stream hype like a bunch of mouth breathers waiting for their next fix of news drama.
May 1st, 2009 at 9:59 am
Hey Gary
Wow, some serious blog post you have here and it certainly seems to hit a chord with a lot of peeps.
I wouldn’t blame them either, I mean… who wouldn’t want to have a rant especially about the media and how they over exaggerate minor issue and regurgitate the same old info, repetitively to such point, where one can be so confused about what is right or wrong.
Let’s take for example the swine flu – to be honest, it all hype and no action. It could have been all preventative, if the pharmaceutical companies hadn’t been transporting new beta testing experimentation samples across the world, and people had took more care about personal hygiene, not to mention that…
What a coincidence that just as this swine flu occur, no other face mask on the current market can protect us apart from this new BioMask, which developed by a few new and upcoming bio-pharmaceutical companies – just so happened to got developed and was just getting patents and being approved.
Not to mention that another pharmaceutical company suddenly just miraculously developed a method of taking out a certain cell/protein/enzyme etc… from the viral strain and developed an vaccine which can help human immune system develop antibodies and eventually defeat this viral.
To some careful observers, these events seem far too Swiss clockwork coordinated and rather peculiar – does it not make one wonder why? All of a sudden, such massive amount of development can be achieved in such short space of time? What were they doing the other time? Developing more new man made HN Viral strands and cause more pandemics?
After all, they release a viral, kill a few (or hundreds) of people, create a urgency, outstrip current stock levels, get media to over hype issue, make people panic, which then forces fellow citizens to buy protection gear i.e. face masks, stock waters, tin food etc…… which when demand is not enough, prices shoot high thus a proper mega cause, effect, supply and demand issue.
This ultimately leads to pharmaceuticals being the winners, i.e. they cause a massive dilemma, which is a good cover to make lots of profit and cover up all they finance sheets and make them look all nice and pretty, as well as pleasing the board, investors and not be in debt due to their foreign investments in the stocks had plummeted and gone bad.
I’m sorry if I’m offending anyone, but given in such difficult and and uncertain global financial stability issues, I think the last thing people want
to hear about is whether we have a pandemic, or be repetitively fired the same old piece of depressing info/ jargon 24/7/365.25 days a year which has been regurgitated, rinse, wash, recycle and fed through the fax machine backwards several times to make a another new report or something to waste another 30secs – 5 mins of people’s daily lives.
News is great for those who want to sit around on their backside 24/7/365.25 days year doing nowt, whilst gorging on nothing but only bad news, and negative issues.
For the rest of us though, I think the most important issues are whether you have a job or not, whether you will be in the job or not, do we have to start looking for an second income to support the family and most importantly whether we will survive until better days.
I guess it won’t be soon and I wouldn’t be surprise, that they will be some random organization, who will take advantage of this situation and say that they predicted this would happen and that the end of the world is nigh, just like them idiots who said the end of the world was at the millennium year 2000.
At the end of the day, Media – sometimes you gotta to love them for what they do, without them we would have nothing to tease or discuss about.
However for pretty much 99.99% of the time, you might as well be better off with a book, composing music, doing something you enjoy or simply just switching of that damn tv, radio, cancel that daily newspaper subscription or whatever form of stream method you have your media delivered.
Plus don’t media understand yet that….. bad news need to be only heard once before it spreads like wildfire?
I guess the answer is…. NO!
Oh well, apologies again for my moment there – guess I just lost the plot.
Best Regards to you Gary and everyone else
Nigel
May 2nd, 2009 at 2:19 am
@ James – GREAT comment. You made so many good points. But the one I like best id this:
Absolutely correct! The media just dishes up the biggest hotchpotch of evil, negative and nasty stuff that we can be excused for thinking that the entire world has gone to SH*T.
I’m predicting that TV, newspapers, magazines and radio stations that persist with this gutter tactic of milking every last bit of grief are all going to die. In fact, I watched a short clip on a “Current Affairs” program the other night where a former senior editor of a women’s magazine (Ita Buttrose) was explaining why so many of these magazines are in decline. And it was all about the negative, sensationalistic and patently FALSE stories that they keep vomiting up.
Last month, I read and watched and heard about one of the greatest “BEAT-UPS” of all time about a sporting team over here in Western Australia. It was a NOTHING story right from the start and all of a sudden it had Ku Klux Klan connections which had it front and centre in the telescopic firing line of EVERY media outlet in the entire country. Then, DESPERATE to take it to an even greater level of UTTER STUPIDITY some IDIOT “journalist” made the claim that a hand position in a photograph denoted a symbolic drug connotation. Then it all went OFF again.
This utter madness, nonsense and stupidity went on for days and days as every media outlet clawed desperately to get another sensational toe-hold into something that was NOTHING.
Your comments about the flu being a killer of people every year – despite being swine, bovine, equine or even of reptilian nature – is well founded.
Finally, James, yes – far be it for me to perpetuate this but… Nikki IS an alien!
Gary
PS: You’ve obviously done what I have James – swallowed a dictionary – LOL!
May 2nd, 2009 at 2:25 am
@ Amy – Nice comment. Love the word “sheeple.” It is just so apt. These are the “sheepish-people” who hang off every word that the media throws at them and treats it all like a gospel truth. “OMG! OMG! OMG! An asteroid is on a collision path with planet earth! OMG!” DUH!
You sure can fool some of the sheeple all of the time. And that is what the media THRIVES on – the Lowest Common Denominator.
I think I might use that word myself in future. Very amusing. Thanks for stopping by. Catch you on Twitter again soon.
Gary
May 2nd, 2009 at 2:39 am
@ Nigel – Hmm, your cynicism matches mine. LOL! I thought exactly the same things about the “timing” of all this. How conveniently co-incidental. You can always bet that the media will INVENT some BS to run with on “slow news” days.
I’m cynical about all these computer viruses the same way. When sales of virus protection programs start to decline – HEY PRESTO – a new swag of computer viruses appear and the virus protection companies have the exact SOLUTION for us – right on time! Co-incidence? Hmm.
I would hope that some Dr Evil isn’t inventing these viruses that attack humans in some clandestine laboratory on behalf of pharmaceutical company – but these days we ALL know what RULES the world – the ALMIGHTY DOLLAR. Some people will do ANYTHING to make millions/billions. And if it is at the expense of murdering millions of innocent people well, hey – collateral damage!
I am at the point now where I just don’t believe hardly anything the media says. It’s a whore.
Thanks for the (long) post.
Gary
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:52 pm
TGM
Me again, just felt the need to pop over to add an example of UK idiocy (no, not mine, I mean from the media).
We now have adverts telling people not to sneeze or cough over other people. Yes, seriously. Are people no longer taught as children that the polite thing to do if you have to cough or sneeze is to cover your face & then go & wash your hands? No? Oh, my bad – they’re all too busy watching this crap on television to consider educating their children in basic manners.
The very fact that we can have an ‘official’ advertisement telling us that flu can be caught from surfaces as the virus lives for a few hours tells me that I live in a country full of *******. Yes, I’ve just self-censored. But what on earth is happening when we as citizens have to have advertisements to tell us how to behave in public?! Next we’ll be having adverts telling us to wash our hands after we go to the toilet, or how to wipe our backsides (just self-censored again – what’s with me today?!).
James, that’s it, I’ve had enough – I’m going home. On my planet we don’t have any of this nonsense. Primarily because I run that planet – and my word is law.
PMW
May 4th, 2009 at 1:30 am
PMW – I had a great laugh when reading your comments. Same here in Oz. People are now being “taught” how to behave because there is something SADLY missing in the upbringing of children.
Another thing that REALLY irritates me is smokers. They are RIGHTLY kicked out of restaurants and pubs and other public places but, what do they do? They hang around door-ways and GAS people with their FOUL lung-smoke as you walk past. Many of them think nothing of blowing that stinking smoke right in your face.
Now to hygiene – or more rightly – LACK of it. When I was in Adelaide last week I went to the toilet/bathroom – whatever you call it, as I had been having a “few” drinks with my friends.
This gets a bit grotty so stop reading now if you don’t wanna know (that almost ENSURES that everyone will read it now – LOL!)…
… Anyway, I’m standing there having a pee and I can hear this guy plopping away in the dunny bombing bloody Pearl Harbor all over again. Next thing I hear him using what must have been about half the roll of dunny paper doing you-know-what. Then, as I am washing my hands, this DIRTY, FILTHY bastard flushes the water (thank God he did that!), opens the cubicle door and walks out of the room – WITHOUT WASHING HIS DIRTY, FILTHY HANDS! Christ!
I used a paper towel to open the door that this PIG opened then used my foot to prop the door open while I threw the towel in the bin.
Next – it gets worse…
… I see Mr Faecal-(Effing)-Fingers – OMG! – shaking hands with some guys in the bar.
Oh, it gets worse! Read on if you dare…
… I’m keeping my eyes on this dirty filthy pig and next he’s grabbing handfuls of peanuts from the bowl at the bar!
That is why I NEVER-EVER-EVER take any unwrapped food from places like this.
I saw a report on TV once (must have been 100% true coz it was on TV – LOL) where samples were taken from bowls like this and scientifically examined for contaminants. They were literally covered with faeces and urine.
DISGUSTING! DISGUSTING! DISGUSTING!
To finish on something other than that filth above…
PMW? Do you come from the same galaxy as Linda Caroll?
TGM
PS: Sorry about the graphic detail above. I was aghast at what I saw this filthy pig do.
May 4th, 2009 at 5:47 am
I couldn’t agree more. I studied journalism and let me say–after four years of it, I really can’t stand the media. It’s nothing BUT fear mongering, and they are leading the demise of the economy. The sad thing is though–this is what sells newspapers and tabloids. Negative/crazy headlines sell. It says a lot about this society in which we reside. I do watch the news, but take EVERYTHING with a grain of salt.
May 4th, 2009 at 6:25 am
@ Charlotte – Well, THANK YOU! No doubt you have a wealth of “insider information” and you have just vindicated what I said above.
Gary
May 4th, 2009 at 6:39 am
Hi – great post – stopped watching TV news about 4 yrs ago, for all the salient points you’ve made. Thanks for that!
May 4th, 2009 at 7:18 am
@ Cynnergies – Good for you. I know an increasing number of people who have done just that – STOPPED WATCHING, READING AND LISTENING to the NEGATIVE MEDIA! I only watch the barest of headlines now.
Thanks for your comment.
Gary
May 4th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
Nail on the head!
I can’t believe some people stopped buying port because of this recent sniffle. Why didn’t KFC go bust during Bird Flu scare? Maybe because CNN didn’t report a link …
It is a chicken/egg situation where people thrive off bad news. If people change their expectations, nobody will tune in .
Re the ‘recession’, that is exactly what I’ve been saying for years. If you think there is a recession, you stop spending and (what do you know!) there’s a recession!
Keep up the truth, Gary!
http://www.twitter.com/nburmandesign
May 5th, 2009 at 12:41 am
@ Nicholas – I really like this comment from you:
So true. Then the media will be FORCED to change its tactics. People don’t want to be depressed and scared ALL the time. I listen mostly to music on the radio now rather than negative talkback.
The light is coming from the end of the tunnel.
Thanks for your comment. I’m just checking out your website now.
Gary
May 6th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Hey Gary,
A Bad News Whore!
WOW! What a rant.
My blood pressure has risen after reading your post and Nikki’s comment. Of course it took me an hour to read both. lol! Now I have to scroll down and read the rest of the comments.
I don’t watch the news anymore. In fact, I haven’t watched any news on TV in years. It’s too depressing. I always just called it “The Bad News”, I wasn’t quite as strong as you in calling the Media a whore, although I couldn’t agree more.
Nikki I love your comment on how TV (and the computer I might add) has become nothing more than a convenient babysitter. I also went awhile before I had heard about the swine flu. My wife told me about it after she heard it on “The Bad News”. Now my poor mother, which by the way turned 86 today, is afraid to leave her house. The freakin Media has got her so scared to go near people she won’t go to the doctor’s office without wearing a mask.
Now I said that I don’t watch “The Bad News” anymore but I didn’t say I don’t watch TV. I do, and probably way too much. I like to watch movies so I rent the ones I want to watch and not ones that someone is forcing me to watch. I must admit, I do watch violent movies but I like action. My wife will walk by the TV and say, “How in the world can you watch such violence”. My reply to her is always the same. What you are watching on the news is way more violent than anything I’m watching. And besides, what I watch is not real.
Where I know I definitely spend too much time in front of the boob toob is watching sports. I can’t help it, I’m a sports fanatic. Now this is where I am really starting to get p**sed off. They are slowly taking my relaxtion time away from me. It’s constant. Every time I turn on the sports channel
the first thing I hear about is who’s taking sterioids this week. I know who these athletes are because I’m reminded every single day. It’s the same old crap over and over again. Give it a freakin rest will you. Now this week it’s about some clown that wrote a controversial book and there are claims in it about cheating in ways other than taking steriods. I know these athletes aren’t angels but I just want to watch a good competetive game. I don’t need to know every time one of them farts.
I’m starting to lose it now so I have to change the subject. I need to read a few more comments.
Gary, you make mention about the Y2K bug that was going to end the world. I actually had a good laugh at that one as I was a computer programmer during that time. I spent two years working nearly seven days a week re-writing code that had been written thirty years ago. All this just to add two digits to the year. You can’t imagine what it was like for us programmers for two years prior to and a month or so after Y2K had come and gone. I never got any sleep. That time actually fried my brain and I got away from programming for a living and now I just do it for the fun of it and for my online business.
Gary, I have tears running down my cheeks from laughing so hard. I just finished reading your piece about the bombing of Pearl Harbor. As disgusting as it was I couldn’t help myself from laughing my ass off in the way you described what happened.
I think I’ve spent enough time here so off to another blog I go.
Thanks for the post Gary. I was feeling a little low but now my blood is pumping through my veins at a rate my doctor would not care for.
Later,
Jeff Sargent
May 7th, 2009 at 1:55 am
Hi Jeff – Hey, thanks for such a long and considered comment. I’m glad you agree that the media is indeed, a whore. The problem is, I think, that there are FAR too many “journalists” being pumped out of universities.
Because there are SO many (just like lawyers) they are all DESPERATE for stories. And they are like RABID dogs scrambling to be the FIRST to “BREAK” a story. Then when somebody does “break” a story, all the other desperadoes cling to it by adding some of their own “spice” – whether it be true or not. They do this to get another “ANGLE.” And so on it goes. It’s crap!
Er, lawyers… there are SO many of them now and that is why you can sue anybody for ANY thing! You will ALWAYS find a money-grubbing lawyer willing to take on any MORONIC case. That is why we now have warnings about every Goddam thing – like “Do NOT iron this shirt while wearing it!” Yes. That is for real.
When there are too many of any occupation scrambling for notice and money then things get ridiculously competitive. Your comments about the negativity of some athletes and the reporting thereof kinda support what I just said.
Regarding “Pearl Harbor” – UGH! I was horrified at what I saw that guy do. I felt like going up to those who he was shaking hands with and saying something like, “Hey, do you guys wanna know that this dirty, filthy creep has just wiped his ass then NOT washed his hands and now he is shaking hands with all you guys? Oh, and, by the way – I wouldn’t eat from that faecal-infested peanut bowl either.”
How do you reckon that would have gone over?
Thanks for stopping by Jeff. I appreciate your comments.
Gary
May 7th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Me again – don’t worry, this will be a short one (ha – me, writing a short comment – not likely!).
Anyway, I was minding my own last night, left work, went home, pootling around, collected my post from the postbox (yes, my life is really that exciting)…and what do I find? A full-colour leaflet on bl**dy swine flu.
How can the government justify spending I-dread-to-think-how-much printing out full-colour leaflets to go into every household to tell us not to sneeze or cough on people?!
I’d consider being speechless but it’s against my religion.
I mean, honestly. Ok, so as with ALL illness, there are those that will be more susceptible than others. But my god, the way they’re going on about it here you’d think the Black Plague had returned.
Anyway, just realised I haven’t commented on the Pearl Harbour scenario above – that was funny as hell although so gross – I too will never eat anything from bars that other people can have had their hands all over. I fear a few men feel they don’t need to wash their hands after shaking their best friend the meat weasel as they don’t consider it to be necessary…but then when I have frequented the occasional bar / club etc (oh, ok, when I go out all night dancing around like an idiot) I also see girls that come out of the bathroom, run their hands through their hair, and then go back onto the dancefloor. Talk about gross.
As I commented above to James, I’ve had enough of this country and this world. I’m returning to my planet. We have soap & know how to use it (and do use it!).
PMW
May 7th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
I just wanted to rant to someone about the news last night. In Canada, the national news is CTV. Well, last night the top story was ‘RIM CO-CEO MAKES BID ON HOCKEY TEAM’. Wow, was I outraged. Maybe a vast majority are sports fans. Great. Put it in the Sports news, at 20 mins past the hour!!!
Then there was a story on pork farmers having a cook out to prove their meat is safe. Apparently the public is too stupid to realise that diseased meat never makes it to the shelves! Sheesh…
Third was a follow up story of a Liberal MP who wanted allegation against her reviewed. Basically it was a 30 second clip letting you know that the case is ongoing. Great.
FOURTH! NUMBER FOUR! Barrack Obama (yes, the US PRESIDENT) has a meeting with two world leaders. How the hell is that fourth billing, right behind the fading career of a member of the opposition?
ARRRGH I was / still am steaming. *&^%ing hockey gets top billing.. unbelievable…