My wife works for Quest newspapers, in the Courier Mail building, and sometimes sums it up with a shake of the head, and a quietly muttered " Journos...." :) Bob
Printable View
Fear trades like gold on the entertainment 'stock market' and the kicker is most 'disasters' are entirely foreseeable (building on fault lines, cities below see level, house in dense scrub, swimming in shark feeding grounds, stripping the land of trees and wondering why it got hot, fly blown and the soil full of salt, just to name a few)
After visiting africa for a month, I no longer let myself get caught up in the 'stay inside and buy more insurance' society we live in. What counts as a unprecedented crime wave in perth, wouldn't rate a mention in alot of parts of the world.
It's all relative. People get all bent out of shape relative to the information and experiences they become conditioned to.
The description that always gets me is where "outrage" is used too often. Like where apparently thousands of public transport users were "outraged" at the fare price increases.
They weren't "outraged". At worst, they might have been mildly ****ed off, and expressed their dissatisfaction by getting in the car instead. No burning of effigies outside local government offices, no rioting, just a quiet shake of the head and a few oaths.....
Look at it from a business perspective.
They're in the business of selling newspapers/television shows.
If you opened the paper and the headline was something like
""Small fire does no damage, takes up headline space"
You're not really going to be interested are you?
But if the headline is " 'Killer fire rages towards homes, thousands of lives at stake in unprecedented disaster due to climate change spurred by the carbon tax', says Lindsay Lohan from rehab." then the average punter is going to think "Sensationalised news, snide political comments and celebrity scandal all in one?! My lucky day!"
Easiest way to make money is to jump on the bandwagon of whatever the latest moral panic or sensationalised garbage is ;)
Cheers
Muppet
Maybe Elvis had the answer when he shot his tv.
ABC tv Melbourne report about 10 days ago on B/triples to be trialed on the
Hume, every time B/triple was mentioned video of triple livestock road trains was shown. Only a small difference, 20mts longer 25/30t heaver and never
going to be less than about 1000km the hume. But it looked good.
Ford Aust run 3 or 4 B/triples between Geelong and Broadmedows every day
and know body even notices them,but lets scare the public any way.
Andrew
The commercials are certainly the most likely to exaggerate because they are in a desperate fight for shrinking ratings as more people switch to the Internet. I see ABC TV news now outrates Channel 10, which is a positive sign, I reckon.
The TV networks are scared of losing their relevance and monopoly over peoples' viewing habits.
Turned the telly on this morning and the first words I heard were -
"Another day here in America, another school shooting..."
Pretty sure it's been more than a day...