“If it bleeds, it leads.” Everything is a crisis! Today news reports, tweets, Facebook posts and even conversations with friends are constantly linked to CRISIS! The more provocative, the more incendiary the topic, the better. Attention everyone…we’re becoming immune/desensitized to REAL crises!
The Iranians, Chinese, Russians, Venezuelans, North Koreans, European Union, the NRA, White Supremacists, Old Angry White Men, Epstein’s suicide or murder, the Border, Mass Shootings, lead in the water in Newark, N.J., California earthquakes and wild fires, heat waves in the Southwest, inflation, deflation, stocks up, stocks down, hail in Colorado, racism, fascism, xxxxxism, melting icebergs, expansion of the Antarctic, meteors coming within a million miles of the Earth…they’re ALL a crisis. We are receiving a constant firehose of hysteria.
Good news doesn’t have a chance. Sure, there’s occasionally a “human interest” segment that talks about the surprise return to his family of a soldier from the war front or neighbors looking out for neighbors, but it’s as if they’re thrown into the lineup just so the media can assert they also report good news. And if that good news doesn’t have a heart-string-tugging video associated with it, you’ll never hear about it.
If it isn’t crisis, it’s oddity, faux science, or just plain clickbait: “DNA determines your politics” is one headline. “Cop pelted with Chinese food during wild Bronx melee” is another. If it’s true that we are what we read, watch on TV or listen to… THIS is what we’re becoming: a population of paranoid, terrified, morbidly curious onlookers!
There’s no changing the info-feed. It’s going to continue like this so long as we click on the link or keep tuned to the tabloid channels (which is what virtually every cable news outlet is today with the exception, perhaps, of One America News).
My recommendation is simple…subscribe to ONE newsfeed and only pay attention to what they cite as breaking or important headlines – mine is the Wall Street Journal’s, and I may get one or two “notifications” a day. Watch ONE evening newscast – I watch OANN’s 6:00 PM Report with Patrick Hussion. And for goodness sake don’t spend hours on Social Media and tabloid sites!
We’ve simply got to refocus on Stuff That Matters. Please America, let’s eschew nonsense and deviance and embrace substance and goodness.
Let’s say a silent prayer and keep looking ahead when we pass the ambulances, fire trucks and wreck by the side of the road.
