Hype.

Last night I said to Mr. Bookworm, “I bet this Irene story is hype.”  I knew that there was a hurricane heading towards land, but I didn’t believe the stories.  As it turned out, I was probably right.  Irene will bring a ton of water and some wind, and there will be destruction, but it won’t be the “storm of the century.”

I’m not prescient.  I’m not more insightful than others.  What I am, to a worrying degree, is cynical about the media.  It’s come to the point where I no longer trust anything the media says.

The MSM has cried wolf once too often.  Between the nature of the 24 hour medium, which encourages non-stop hysteria, and the bias of its members, who lean so far to the Left I’m surprised my TV is still upright after watching a news show, I ignore what the media says.  When it’s forced on my attention, I tone it down in my own mind.  If the talking head is screaming “rivers of blood,” my brain whispers “trickles, if that much.”

You’ll note that I said “to a worrying degree.”  The media does still convey facts that a functional human being ought to know.  If I had the time and the energy, I would bend my efforts to separating wheat from chaff, rather than dismissing everything I hear.  My concern is that, one day, there’ll be a real story there and I’ll miss it.  Aesop knew that was a risk.  As you recall from his fable, one day a real wolf showed up and the villagers ignored the boy’s cries, having heard them once too often.  In Aesop’s telling, only the boy gets eaten.  I’m worried, though, that one day a real wolf will show up and eat us all.