Thursday, May 10, 2007

"I gather all the news I need from the weather report."

There's that word again; "heavy". Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the earth's gravitational pull?

I try not to take myself or anything, for that matter, too seriously. However, sometimes it seems that our friendly media conglomerates would prefer otherwise. Well, not that I personally (they'd need a bigger audience than that to sell the vacuums and diet plans they advertise on those networks) start taking everything seriously but that the country as a whole freak out at every little turn of events inside and outside of schools, around the corner, and in your neighbor's backyard.

This morning, a cook at a school in Boulder, Colorado saw "masked men" in a hallway and called the cops. Granted, if I were that cook, I would do the same. And I, by no means, want to belittle this episode. We're all still a little shaken by the events at Virginia Tech, certainly. (I am aware of the fact that I've just called into play a technique used by media conglomerates: comparing new, slightly less interesting events to a quite shocking, quite horrifying scene still fresh in viewers' memories in order to sell a story. But it seems appropriate at this point in time.)

I suppose what I want to point out is the bitterness this entire situation strikes in me. This morning, we were all swallowing back a fear conceived by confirmed terror attacks and school shootings only to hear a school official admit that the "masked men" may just have been a couple of high school pranksters looking to end the year with a (tasteless) prank.

Immediately, my conditioned skepticism for 24-hour news networks kicked in and I recalled my own high school days and the senior prank played on my school to which the response was far less than a bomb squad appearance and news coverage. Is this what we've come to?

But, since no explanation has been offered, it's possible that the events were much more sinister than I'd like to admit. Unfortunately, that's where we live now. We have to accept the fact that we, as a culture, are always on guard thanks to recent occurrences. Welcome to the future.

So, before drawing any conclusions based on my own personal bias, I should wait (and pray for the best) to see the true outcome.

Is the real issue that I've been conditioned to distrust news anchors? Perhaps. I'm sure this is true of many people. I feel as though there was a time when we could trust news anchors. But after countless stories accusing either the "liberals" or the "conservatives" of "plots" to "further" their respective "agendas", even going so far as using movies ("Brokeback Mountain" or "The Chronicles of Narnia") as proof that they are drawing followers to their "platforms". As though each political faction is a cult within and of itself.

And then weeks of 24-hour news coverage of Anna Nicole Smith's death and the follow-up of Larry Burkehead (sp? -- really don't care enough to look this one up) and their daughter. And the fancy graphics to boot.

It makes me sick to think that we get our news from these people working with material that's slightly better than that of a late night infomercial.

Well, maybe not sick. I overdramatize to get the point across. You know how it is. (See what I did there?)

And perhaps I've gone too far by comparing them to infomercials. It was an emotionally-charged step. And this is just a blog. I'm not too worried about encouraging America to turn their backs on the handsome news men and women.

I still watch myself. Perhaps the key is to know enough on your own and take every view spewed out from the TV with a grain of salt. No news program, book, movie, piece of art, actor, singer, entertainer or it-girl is influential enough to shake a strong belief in facts. I'd like to think that's true of everyone.

But those sales people ... er ... news anchors. They can be convincing sometimes.

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