Selling hysteria……………………

So what’s the deal? Why is it that the media feels the need to try and sell us on fear? What am I talking about? I’ll tell you.

I have noticed a trend in the news (I’m sure that everyone has noticed it, but I want to mention it, hell I want to COMPLAIN about it!), the trend is fear mongering.

For instance, my local television stations have gotten on this kick where almost all of the weather stories are made to sound ominous. If there is rain forecasted, they put in something like, “the potential for torrential rains is possible”. But when you look at the radar all you see is light to moderate rainfall. If there is a chance for thunderstorms….they might say,” there is a likelihood for DEADLY cloud to ground lightning, and DAMAGING hail and winds”. And again, you look at the radar and what do you see? Just a run of the mill thunderstorm, no tornado vortex signatures, no insane winds on the Doppler, nothing but a little thunder and lightning, maybe (and rarely I might add) some pea sized hail. Winter weather? Laughable, we might get 5 inches of snow in one night, and it will be “labeled” as “The BLIZZARD of 2006”. WTH!?!?!

And now we are being coaxed into a sense of unease about avian flu, don’t get me wrong, if it does mutate into a strain easily transmitted from bird to human, then from human to human, it could be bad. COULD BE, not guaranteed to be though. Look at the Spanish flu of 1918-1919. MILLIONS died, but millions died in an era of medical infancy compared to this day and age. Don’t get me wrong, it could happen, but do we need to generate a sense impending doom with this? No wonder depression is rampant in this country, too many people have no good news to think about.

The press did this with SARS too, remember? The fear of a SARS pandemic, oh, and we better not forget our good old buddy West Nile Virus while we’re at it!

I’d like to see a day when the media decides to tell it like it is, not tell it like the world has no hope for survival.


Have a good day, and shoot the first person who coughs near you….that way you can maybe save the world from the next big plague (or next big news story)