Flashback – Need for Speed

It is no wonder that anxiety and depression are increasing as a combination of constant bad news, the threat of the coronavirus and political tensions are compounded by the breathless urgency of the media’s presentations. Everything is top priority, and everyone is fighting to be the first to tell their version of every story. No one can wait until tomorrow for a more thorough or accurate story, because by tomorrow there will be a new crisis.

Almost nine years ago I warned of this trend:

[It's Monday morning and I find a news story about a news story. The news of Whitney Houston’s death was on Twitter 27 minutes before the mainstream media broke the story. A whole 27 minutes! That’s unbelievable! How could people be kept waiting so long? Shouldn’t there be some kind of law to prevent such unconscionable delays in communicating these life-changing events?

Of course I’m being sarcastic. It is rather amazing that Twitter has such a web of interconnections. The article goes on to cite statistics about the number of tweets and retweets, suggesting that Twitter may become the new source of breaking news. (The power of the social media is the power we give it.)

My question is: What’s the hurry? Why the urgency? It’s too bad Whitney Houston died. It’s too bad she had all those personal problems. She was a great entertainer, admired by many. But what’s the big deal about finding out 27 minutes later?

First, we have been conditioned to expect “breaking news” as soon as it happens – even news that does not affect us directly. Television and the Internet compete for our attention, and the way to get it seems to be to promise instant gratification for our news craving. Details can be filled in later, but the important thing, we are told, is to find out about it now. As implied by a series of recent smartphone ads, if you are the last to know, you are considered some kind of loser. It’s cool to be able to respond that you already got the word.

Another part of the problem is that people place too much importance on the roles of entertainers. They spend so much time, money and emotional energy following the output of their favorite performer, group or team that they consider them close friends. Stars can’t go out in public without people hassling them for autographs or selfies. Stars want privacy while fans demand their attention.

This behavior, the importance we place both on celebrity and on instant news, is a symptom of a lack of perspective in our society that leads to problems elsewhere in our lives, poor decisions and misplaced priorities.

When my father died, my brother called to give me the news so that I could make travel arrangements to attend the funeral. This news was important and personal to me, but if I had gotten it 27 minutes later, it would have made no difference at all.]

More Idiocy From the Media

Not wanting to break the spirit of Flashback Fridays, I refer to “Why Aren’t We Insulted?” from just a few weeks ago, but this is really a slightly different subject.

On March 1 I wrote, “When companies and politicians treat us like compete idiots or pander to us by latching on to the latest trends, I think we should be insulted. We are being manipulated, but continue to respond predictably.” Equally insulting is a new trend in reporting on the coronavirus. The media treats us like fools and idiots without any pushback from readers and viewers.

I’ve heard it many times on local TV news as well as national network news, and I see it in print: “The death toll from coronavirus continues to rise.” Here are just a few quick examples from CBS, US News and the Baton Rouge Advocate.

Think about this for a minute. The death toll from anything is always going to rise unless there are zero deaths. The latest death toll, the one they refer to and display on the screen, is calculated by adding new deaths to the ones already reported. If there is only one more death, the toll goes up. And unless someone miraculously rises from the dead it will never decrease! In the middle of a pandemic, few additional deaths would be cause for some optimism. But optimistic news takes a back seat, and breathlessly reporting of “continuing to rise” is more frightening and better serves their purpose of keeping everyone in a panic, tuning in and anticipating their next breaking-news bombshell.

As critical thinkers, we should be insulted by such misleading headlines, but apparently we are not. We get the news that they want to serve up in the format they want to use and with built in bias. Journalism is, for the most part, dead. We get the news we respond to (or at least tolerate). We get the news we deserve.

They keep advertising "We are all in this together," but imagine the shock and surprise if just one reporter at the daily press conference asked the simple question, "What can we do to help?"

Coronavirus Fears

The fears, more so than the virus, are leading people to do strange things. The toilet paper and bottled water hoarding is just one example. I stopped by the grocery store today and it was packed at 1:30 in the afternoon. Schools announced they would shut down for 2 weeks to disinfect, and apparently what you do when the schools are closed to keep the kids from infecting each other is take them to a crowded grocery store instead.

And what the schools are disinfecting is a mystery, since there have been no reported cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) in this or any of the surrounding counties. But I guess the schools will be as germ-free as they have ever been.

I don’t think the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Anthony Fauci, is doing anyone any favors. He is undoubtedly very knowledgeable on the subject, but his bedside manner leaves something to be desired. With the country in a panic he told Congress, “things will get worse than they are right now. ”

That is the direct truth, perhaps a little too direct. It is understandable from a purely clinical point of view that diseases spread, especially in a population without immunity, but words like that don’t do anything to get people to calm down. They have the opposite effect (to the great delight of the news media). 

So here is another way to think about it. America is very likely better at dealing with such a problem than China. The first case in China was traced to November 17 of last year.

By February 29, we were seeing headlines like this from NPR: “As New Coronavirus Cases Slow In China, Factories Start Reopening.” They were still having some economic problems, but the future seemed brighter.

By March 12 Reuters was reporting: “The Chinese city of Wuhan, ground zero of the coronavirus outbreak, reported just five new cases on Friday, the second day in a row the tally has been less than 10, while no locally transmitted infections were reported in the rest of the country.” Less than four months after the initial outbreak they seemed to be getting a handle on the problem.

That should be encouraging for the rest of us. Though it will likely get worse as Dr. Fauci stated, the first case of coronavirus was already detected in the US just about two months ago. “On January 19, 2020, a 35-year-old man presented to an urgent care clinic in Snohomish County, Washington, with a 4-day history of cough and subjective fever.”

Now extrapolation can be a little dangerous, and no one can guarantee that we will be out of the woods less than two months from now. But judging from progression of the disease in China and subsequently in Italy, it seems like a decent assumption. Whether it is or not remains to be seen, but taking that point of view is certainly more comforting (and realistic) than listening to the evening news and then hauling the kids off to the store to buy more toilet paper. 

Flashback - Letting the Media Scare Us Over and Over

[The news and entertainment cycles are so rapid that nostalgia no longer requires a long memory. What was scary or hot just a few years ago has moved on to be replaced by the latest craze, panic or breaking story. It was little more than twenty years ago that the world was stressing over Y2K – what would happen when the computers thought the year was 1900? Since then people have worried about frankenfish, the genetically engineered salmon raised on farms, and the rejection of net neutrality leading to a crisis that never happened, along with many other manufactured fears. 

Every Christmas parents stress about getting access to the “hot new” toy so their kids wouldn’t be disappointed, but where are all the Tickle Me Elmo dolls today? 

Likewise the worldwide epidemics come and go. Just a couple of years ago it was Ebola coming from Africa. Today it’s Coronavirus from China. And don't forget SARS.

One such flash-in-the-pan concern was over a product vilified by some celebrity chef as pink slime, as I wrote back in 2012.]

Now we get the case of “pink slime,” a derogatory term referring to, and gathering support against, the use of beef scraps to supplement ground beef sold in stores, a practice that has been going on for years with no ill effects. Why do people stoop to such name-calling? Either they have no valid arguments or they are trying to catch us up in an emotional reaction to promote their particular cause (or as this news article calls it, a crusade). Who thinks about the jobs lost? Why are people who speak out against waste in other areas silent on this issue? Why would Kroger and the other grocery chains buckle under the pressure of these crusades against a product that is not harmful, less expensive and less fatty, that they have been selling for the last 20 years? This hurts many and helps no one.

The uproar about the coloring ingredient in Coke and Pepsi that I addressed on March 19, [2012] had a similar dynamic - get people all riled up to rally behind a cause or complaint based on poor or sometimes even deceptive evidence. The problem is that with social media it is now far easier to start a crusade or get people fired up about an issue using an emotional appeal. Before you know it governments are banning products or ingredients or the companies that sell them are back-pedaling due to the bad press on Facebook or Twitter. Most consumers have little formal science education in such areas as human biology or experimental design, but they loudly express their “concerns” based on unreliable information on the Internet. The masses are howling, the ringleaders are name calling, and we are moving closer and closer to a kind of mob rule where we end up paying the extra costs, enduring the unintended consequences, and having our choices limited.

In this fast moving society one subject does not stay in the news long, so the following week, "concerns" arose over the use of BPA in food packaging.  At this rate we could be banning or otherwise losing access to 50 products a year based not on science but on public outcry!

Along similar lines a different article tells about how old photos were intentionally used by the press to influence public perception in the Florida shooting case that has sparked so many protests. The article suggests that this type of manipulation by selective presentation of pictures and videos has become common practice in the media. Another article sheds additional doubt on the accuracy and completeness of some news reports.

So my question is, when are we going to stop being influenced, frightened and manipulated, and start thinking for ourselves? One way leads to reasonable outcomes, the other to the consequences of chaotic, knee-jerk reactions to each new manufactured crisis or irresponsible crusade. 

So Much Filler

With so much time dedicated to news, the media faces the choice of either saying the same thing over and over until people get sick of hearing it and it loses its edge, or trying to come up with enough extra items to fill the time available. The trend has been to accuse “cable news” of this use of filler (and other things, like using unverified sources), but it's found on the networks as well.

The practice of using filler goes beyond the cute animal pictures from the Internet and the feel-good, human-interest stories at the end of evening newscasts. This explains why every time I hear a newscaster start with the words, “A new study shows,” I tend to roll my eyes and tune it out. It is there to fill airtime and is either incomplete, inconclusive or both, featuring words like linked to and may cause and leads to or simply a rehash of common knowledge – often both.

A prime example turned up last week. It appeared not only on network news, but on CNN and Time.com. Napping is good for you.

 “In a new paper published in the journal Heart, researchers found that Swiss adults who took one or two daytime naps per week had a lower risk of heart problems, including heart disease and strokes, than non-nappers.” They followed about 3500 people between the ages of 35 and 75 for eight years, dividing them into four groups based on self-reporting: no naps, 1-2 times per week, 3-5 naps per week and about daily. 

They drew the conclusion by sorting that data by the 155 people in the study who developed heart problems. (Except their conclusion did not apply to people over 65.) Time also reports: “The study was limited by its observational design—which allows researchers to find only patterns, not cause and effect.” There, late in the article come the disclaimers. 

CNN's piece was a little more forthright at the beginning with the headline: "Daytime naps once or twice a week may be linked to a healthy heart.” Their expert doesn’t think changing habits to conform to the study findings will improve heart health. It may be more about overall choices behind those sleep habits. It is “far better to aim for regular good night's sleep and to follow usual lifestyle advice of good diets and decent activity levels.”

The whole story is very heavy on may be linked and no definite cause and effect, concluding with common advice on healthy lifestyles.

One wonders why it even considered newsworthy when the study itself gives the same vague information: “Nap frequency may help explain the discrepant findings [in other studies] regarding the association between napping and [cardiovascular disease] events." [Emphasis added.]

The researchers acknowledged limitations: reliance on self-reporting, the small number of subjects with CVD events (155) – especially in the 1-2 naps per week group, the possibility of underestimating morning napping due to the questionnaire’s wording and the possibility of residual confounding, which means that other factors not included in the study could have affected the results. Therefore, “these results should be interpreted with caution,” and generalizing conclusions beyond the Swiss population “is not guaranteed.” 

Looking into the details confirmed my suspicions. This study may have been of interest to other research groups working on napping-related questions, but it was very limited and of no value at all to the American public. Why then did 76 news outlets pick up the story with some providing more thorough and accurate information than others? – Filler!

Get a Grip

Several years ago I knew a woman, the manager of an office, who would occasionally remind her workers to “get a grip.” She meant that she couldn’t discuss a problem or issue with them until they could calm down and approach the subject rationally. This tendency to fly off the handle about trivial matters or about things we have no control over is a good indicator of a temporary failure of perspective.

This is what comes to mind when I read about threats from strangers. It’s likely that the person mailing bombs to leading Democrats was just a crazy person motivated by some kind of warped sense of their role in politics. That may also apply to the man in Pennsylvania who threatened to shoot up a polling center on Election Day after finding out he wasn’t registered to vote or to the man in Florida who threatened to blow up an elections office building because he was fed up with receiving too many robocalls. I wouldn’t call these folks typical.

 But there have also been some recent examples of people, who are probably otherwise fairly levelheaded, who needed to be reminded to get a grip.

The first example comes from northern Indiana. On the day before Halloween, a “9-year-old girl and her twin 6-year-old brothers were struck and killed by a pickup truck as they crossed a road to board a school bus.” It was a tragic and heartbreaking accident that made national news. The driver of the pickup truck has been charged with three counts of reckless homicide and one of passing a school bus causing injury.

Only a couple of days afterward the sheriff was forced to go on Facebook and local television to ask people in the community to stop threatening the woman, saying, "No good can come from the harassment and the threats of violence against individuals involved.” What made those people think threatening this person was a good idea or that it would have positive results? It was obviously more than one person.

In a similar situation at about the same time, professional football player Ty Montgomery and his family were receiving threats. Why? He made a mistake during a football game. Instead of taking a touchback in the end zone after a kickoff in the fourth quarter, he tried to return the kick. He was hit, fumbled and lost the ball, blowing an opportunity for his team to make a last effort to win the game.

You don’t have to look any further than the last word of the last sentence - game! And this again was obviously more than one person. He told the press, "People are sending messages to my wife, people are making comments on posts about my son. I'm getting phone calls, people offering their houses to stay [at] because apparently people are making threats online."

There are a lot of benefits to the current level of technology, allowing mass communications and giving anyone the ability to contact others instantly anywhere in the world. Through social media we can pass along good news or amusing pictures and stories to groups at a time. One downside of the same technology is this ability to express outrage, often in the form of threats. These threats serve no purpose, accomplishing nothing, except possibly making the perpetrators feel a little better about themselves. What’s worse is that it can be over something as trivial as a sporting event.

Maybe everyone needs a sign over their television and computer screen reminding them, when the awful news or the awful sports decision is broadcast, to “get a grip.”

Practical Health Advice

I have written in the past about the health advice on TV or the Internet from reputable sources that usually boils down to eating well, exercising, getting enough sleep, not smoking and drinking alcohol in moderation. It includes many of the behaviors showing strong discipline and is never a new revelation. (The health advice from not-so-reputable sources includes all the magic herbs, oils, supplements and ancient secrets and is best ignored.)

One good piece of health advice that is often not mentioned or only hinted at is to minimize stress. Although stress can be good and energizing, most stress is harmful and can lead to serious health problems. WebMD lists these facts about stress:

• Seventy-five percent to 90% of all doctor's office visits are for stress-related ailments and complaints. 
• Stress can play a part in problems such as headaches, high blood pressure, heart problems, diabetes, skin conditions, asthma, arthritis, depression, and anxiety. 
• The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) declared stress a hazard of the workplace. Stress costs American industry more than $300 billion annually.

 One of the most stressful situations is that of an abused spouse or partner, and it doesn’t even have to be physical abuse. “Nearly half of all women and men in the United States will experience psychological aggression by an intimate partner in their lifetime. (CDC, 2017)” The abuse and manipulation puts a terrible strain on the individual. Friends often rightly advise her (or him) to leave the relationship for their own good. To the outside observer, it’s a no-brainer, but the person in the relationship has trouble seeing it clearly.

That’s what comes to mind when I see people freaking out on social media and in person over the latest breaking news (whatever that happens to be).  They are feeling stress similar to being psychologically abused and manipulated.  They put their health at risk by taking those news stories personally and reacting just as they have been calculated to react.  (Nothing seems to please a reporter more than the chance to get someone crying on camera.  The viewer reaction drives ratings.)

Nothing brings this home more clearly than the Time Magazine article that required correction when a “photo of a crying Honduran girl used as a symbol of the Trump administration's policy of separating undocumented migrant children from their parents turns out to not be as representative as originally believed.” Though the Time editor-in-chief issued an apology that the original version of the story “misstated” what happened, he stood by the overall reporting behind the story and the “larger issues” represented by the photo. So it doesn’t matter if it’s true or accurate, as long as it elicits the desired response.

Another source called the story accompanying the photo “factually incorrect, wildly misleading, and lacking important context” and accused Time of standing by the story because of its “Propaganda Value.” And the photographer didn’t seem to mind that it was misrepresented.

There has been much other, less blatant evidence that the media is less interested in informing than in molding opinions. But if this admission from Time doesn’t persuade people that they are being manipulated, they are like the abused spouse who refuses to see the truth and leave.  The media is not our friend.  They are trying to sell you ideas and sell you products through the ads they can get by keeping you hooked on their soap-opera-like presentation of what they decide to report as news.

It takes a lot of critical thinking – leading with your head and not your heart – to see through this psychological game playing, but your health is at risk.

What To Do About The News

Last Monday a local news reporter informed viewers that if they hadn’t filed their taxes yet, they had only one day left to file for an extension.  He added that some, but not all, states give an automatic extension based on filing of the federal form without filing additional paperwork.

This brought home an important point.  The report was local and an overwhelming majority of viewers lived in the same state. Why did the reporter not mention, by the way, into which category our state falls?  It would have taken maybe five minutes on the Internet.  It brought home the point that those so-called journalists are merely reading from a script.  When the one story is over, they move on to the next.  They don’t do their homework.  They aren’t interested in details.  They are not in the business of explaining or enlightening.

They are in the business of passing along dry facts, which are sometimes not even factual, or of repeating someone else’s opinion.  The biggest waste of our time is the speculation by experts, politicians or even fellow journalists on what might happen at a meeting or as the result of a certain decision.  The second biggest waste of our time is reporting on something we all knew would be happening anyway, just to rehash the original event.  An example is that when someone dies in a horrible or unexpected way, we are sure to hear mention of the funeral a few days later just to revisit the original story and reemphasize how horrible or unusual it was.

As the nation gets further and further divided, the bias of the media becomes more obvious.  They decide both what to tell us and how to tell it. Do they put a spin on certain news that will appeal to their viewers or do they omit certain stories that favor the opposition or reflect unfavorably on their political view?  If you don’t believe it, as an experiment, look at the headlines on the CNN website and then go directly to the Fox News website.  It’s almost like reading news about two different countries!

The science stories can be as bad, no depth or research, just a reading from the press release. There may be a comment from their science correspondent that puts things into perspective, but don’t count on that being totally accurate.  Remember, the primary objective of the media is to scare or manipulate customers with the goal of promoting their product and beating out the competition.  These are not a bunch of altruistic enterprises intent on dolling out the truth to all.  They are in business to make money.

That leaves two alternatives:  rely on the news from friends and newsfeeds on social media or critical thinking.

The first alternative may look unlikely, but as of 2016, 62% of adult Americans – get at least some of their news from social media, up from 48% in 2012 according to the Pew Research Center and others.  “I know it’s true; I read it on the Internet” used to be a joke, but today nearly one in five rely on social media exclusively for news.  Whereas network news organizations once required two independent sources, those who post or repost on Facebook don’t feel obligated to check the accuracy or timeliness of any information.  The same false rumors on health or politics recirculate every couple of years.

Unless you are going to count on the cute cats and puppy-dogs seen both on social media, and more and more on the mainstream, critical thinking is the only solution. Some stories make no sense on the surface. Some are not consistent with other known information that does not accompany the story.  Some are just made up stories to fit a particular worldview.

The critical thinker approaches all these with a skeptical mind and does research to find more information or different sides of the story. It’s impossible to find out the truth in every case, but as some sources prove to be more reliable and new subjects are often related to others previously researched, it becomes easier to narrow things down and sort out what's correct.  Also, our scope must be limited because it is impossible to be scared of everything.  Perspective helps focus, while critical thinking helps discover the truth.

This and That (2)

I.  In the grocery store the other day I saw 12-packs of cola selling for $3.33.  At the end of the aisle was a big sign announcing 24-packs of the same product for $7.68.  How much critical thinking does it take to figure out that two 12-packs is a much better deal - $6.66 vs. $7.68?  It’s like someone walking up and handing out dollar bills just for paying attention.

II.  Will the day come when no one has a vocabulary larger than 20,000 words, because all other words have been declared by someone or other to be hurtful or offensive?  We will run out of letter-words and have to double up - the N-word, the F-word, the B2-word, the C23-word, etc.

III.  A question that seems to be coming up more frequently:  Is any particular website (or Facebook posting) real, a parody or someone’s idea of a joke?  It’s getting harder and harder to tell them apart.

IV.  Has the news media deteriorated because of the American need to be entertained?  We will no longer stand for the talking heads, so they send reporters to the scene of an incident long after everyone else has moved on, having them stand out in the weather (sometimes in the dark) to tell us about the shooting or collision that happened hours ago.  To keep us from turning back to our smartphones, they must show us more non-news just to keep things everyone interested, to elicit amusement or outrage:  cute pets or wildlife, what’s “trending,” (usually dire) predictions of the future, opinions of non-experts like "the man on the street” or their media colleagues.  Based on what they deliver, I no longer believe they deserve to be referred to as journalists.  Many just do Google searches, pass along press releases, publish leaks, tell us their opinion of celebrity or political Tweets or send cameras to public or weather events.  As one friend put it, “If we could only harness the energy of Walter Cronkite spinning in his grave, our problems would be solved!”

V.  Breakfast is back, rising like a phoenix.  This study reported in an August 17, 2017 article finds that children who skipped breakfast “were missing out on key nutrients which impacted their productivity throughout the day.”  Researchers discovered this after studying the habits and performance of 802 children.

Why the phoenix analogy?  Years ago breakfast was “your most important meal.” As indicated above, it got you off to a good start.  But recently this has been the subject of debate rather than accepted wisdom.  About 6 years ago people began calling it a myth, as here where they come right out and say breakfast is not important.  Others hopped on board the myth bandwagon.  The controversy centered around whether skipping breakfast was good or bad for weight control rather than its effect on overall health or performance.  A 2014 CBS report recommends eating breakfast because previous studies gave conflicting advice, “with some suggesting that eating breakfast can help people lose weight and others finding the opposite.”  This continued conflicting advice is clear from a 2015 headline reading:  “New Study Shows No Signs That Skipping Breakfast Will Make You Gain Weight.”  But an earlier CBS report said it would.

As of today breakfast is good for children, and another study last January said that “skipping breakfast or eating late in the day could raise the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.”  Perhaps the phoenix comparison was a bad one and a ping pong ball is more appropriate.  What’s a mother (or a dieter) to do?!  Pick a side and you can find a study to back you up.

Perspective of Constant Updates

Why do we hear about political polls almost daily for 6 months or more before the election?  Here is just one sample from a few weeks ago on CBS News: “Where Clinton and Trump stand with 90 days left.”  I just saw the headline and didn’t read the article, because it makes absolutely no difference where they stand 90 days before or even one day before the election.  It only makes a difference where they stand the day after the election.  This is not news.  It’s more like laziness, something they can sit in the office and collect off a feed from somewhere else.

This has been the trend in news for the last few decades.  They breathlessly report results of a poll, sometimes a poll they themselves have taken, about who is slipping or who is gaining.  That information may be useful to the candidates' campaigns, but not to voters who still have, in this case, 90 days to make up their minds.  It is generally a waste of our time; but if they can make it seem like news, they can draw in the viewers and advertisers to help pay their anchors millions of dollars (to read poll results and later in the broadcast complain about overpaid CEOs).

These same organizations will try to keep us up on election night watching them kill time by checking off states, showing partial returns and reviewing voter turnout, until they can make a final determination.  It’s unbelievable how many people fall for this, people who know deep down inside that the results will be the same in the morning and nothing is gained by staying up to hear those results six hours earlier.  The world is not going to changing in those 6 hours.  The new president will not take office for another two months, two months in which the media will be filled with stories about what might happen or who might be appointed to the cabinet, and gobs more speculation by insiders,  experts and even their fellow news reporters.

But we never learn.  The media has us trained to sit on the edge of our seats, soaking in these meaningless polling data and speculations.  We can’t wait to see what happens and need some expert to provide guesses to relieve the suspense.  Likewise, they compete for our attention with breaking news, of some disaster or incident from across the ocean or the other side of the country that can’t wait until a scheduled program – because it will affect our lives how? 

See how we are conditioned.  Ring the news bell and we salivate for the latest!

On a related note, why do I need a mobile app to check my bank balance on my phone from anywhere?  If I go out shopping, I will use my credit card that needs to be paid only once a month.  I will have plenty of time to come home and check my bank balance on my computer if I really need to.  Shopping with a list also reduces the chance of coming up embarrassingly short.  Yet the bank thinks they are doing me a big favor giving me the ability to check my balance on the fly.  Perhaps they think I will be going to lunch from the office unable to decide between joining my rich friends at the Ritz or my cheap friends at McDonalds.  I have to check my balance first.  Perhaps they are just trying to encourage me to live closer to the edge financially, knowing I can get away with it because I have my bank balance at my finger tips.

I don’t know.  I suspect they are just trying to compete for my business with all the other banks that will let me check my bank balance on my phone at any time from anywhere for some unfathomable reason.  Meanwhile they are paying a bunch of programmers to come up with nifty apps instead of using that money to pay me a just little more interest on the money I do have in the bank.  That would be an excellent way to compete.

This is about having perspective.  Slow down and get a grip on reality.  Don’t be lured in by the hype and simulated excitement.

Admit it.  Ninety-nine percent of breaking news is not that urgent or important.  A tornado warning in your county is breaking news; a plane crash in Egypt is not.  The only other time it might be important enough to interrupt my day is if my bank suddenly went out of business.  Then I could pull out my phone and find out immediately if I had any money left at all!

Perspective in the News

Here is a good illustration of what I mean when I warn about not depending on the news media for a sense of perspective.

On the same day, early in the morning and around noon, I caught two news reports.  The first came from CBS This Morning.  It was promoted as, “what the car companies won’t tell you that may be a danger to your family.” Later, when the story aired, the headline read:  “’No excuse’: Safety experts say this car defect puts kids in danger.”  It featured a family whose child was severely injured when their car was rear-ended; and the father, who was driving, was propelled back into his son in the back seat.  The force of the crash caused the front seat to fail and break.  Although the seats met federal safety standards, the auto company was found partially liable for not having stronger seats and faces a verdict of over $120 million.  (Included in the video but omitted from the text was that the father was not wearing his seatbelt and the child was not riding in a safety seat.)

The report went on to say:  “CBS News investigation has identified more than 100 people nationally who were severely injured or killed in apparent seatback failures since 1989. The majority were children. Seventeen have died in the past 15 years alone.”  At the end of the piece the father urged viewers to contact their representatives demanding stricter standards.

The second report was a national story presented on the local news.  They reported that the number of pedestrian fatalities was up in 2015 partially as a result of texting while walking. 

“The [Governors Highway Safety Commission] report showed one of the biggest factors in the past few years, has been smartphones. More and more people are texting or on social media while they’re walking.”  They showed pictures of several people walking down the sidewalk while absorbed with their cell phones and conducted a few interviews.  The whole presentation was serious but had some light-hearted notes with people saying they weren’t surprised because nearly everyone was paying less attention while walking.  One interviewee joked about walking into a garbage can once while he was distracted by his phone.  According to the Associated Press, “2,368 pedestrians [were] killed in the first six months of 2015.”

So we have two news stories on the same day:  one with people wringing their hands and demanding changes to federal regulations to avoid about 100 deaths or injuries in 25 years, while the other calmly presented how we should try to reduce over 4700 deaths per year.  Now deaths and serious injuries, especially to children, are sad and important, but look at how out of proportion the first story is to the second. 

The lesson here is that we only have enough time and energy to worry about a limited number of things.  Don’t rely on the news media to help us sort these things out or set priorities.  They want us to be equally upset by everything they present, whether a problem results in a couple of deaths a year or thousands they are given the same import.  The exception is that deaths or injuries to one or two Americans usually get much more attention than to hundreds of Africans or Arabs.  Their job is to inform and entertain in such a way that allows them to sell viewers to their sponsors not to sort things out.