The latest media fad

[ckissick]

It seems like every three days or so there's a new doom and gloom story in the media about a new strain of covid that's more lethal, more infectious, and more resistant to vaccines. This has been going on for weeks (or months). Nothing seems to come of it, then there's a new report of yet another new mutation popping up somewhere else, with new warnings of doom and gloom. But then nothing seems to come of it...

[Nostril Cheese]

All those kids huffing jenkem....

[wdfifteen]

It’s just information. “Doom and Gloom” is your own emotional response to the information.

[varmint]

Do you remember just before COVID they were trying to convince us we’d all die of vape lung?

[unclebilly]

Trying to keep your eyes off of what your owned president is actually doing to your country...

[Tervuren]

What I notice most about it if I do see it is that the new strain's of virus are referred to by their point of first observance.
Unlike, cough, the uh, what place was it virus?

You may say just a name, what is important?
Scientific norm was disrupted in plain sight.
Should be deeply disturbing to anyone with an interest in science or health.

[javadog]

They gotta keep the sheep scared. It’s not just in this country, doing it in places like the UK, as well.

[KFC911]

"They" name and sensationalize every other afternoon thunderstorm these daze... baaaaa.

Rating$ .... and you watched it .

[LEAKYSEALS951]

Local news station website here like to share a daily "covid death du jour." If nobody local dies with an interesting story, they ship in stories from other parts of the country.

"Lanny, in Sioux City, survived tremendous adversity during his life, only to tragically be brought down by covid."

Makes me want to write in - "How bout running 98 or so stories on people who LIVED" to keep it balanced.

[porsche tech]

And Lanny of Sioux City weighed 350 and had severe diabetes.

[porsche tech]

The local “newspaper” here is the Island Packet. Went bankrupt and McClatchy bought it. The sports page is usually about 3 days behind and the front news section is usually about 3 pages long with 2 of the pages being hearing aid ads. The “news” section has how many new cases of COVID and the number of deaths (if any) without fail. Keep ‘em scared and distracted seems to be the aim. The ONLY reason I don’t cancel it is our dog, Bosco, lives to run down to the end of the driveway every morning to bring it in!

[Chocaholic]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

It’s just information. “Doom and Gloom” is your own emotional response to the information.

It is NOT information. It is click-bait. It’s prevalent now and COVID is keeping the coffers full. Doom and gloom drives clicks and elevates ad prices. Despite all the fear-mongering, cases and deaths continue to fall.

Follow the money.

[McLovin]

There’s 1.9 trillion reasons for that.

[svandamme]

Since when is drama/hype/exaggeration a new fad of the Media???

[javadog]

Yeah, now that they got the almighty Porkulopolous passed, will Covid finally go away?

They’ve recently admitted that “wear masks, or don’t wear masks, the end result is the same.” So they’re going to recommend continuing to wear the masks, of course. Once people get wind of that, I suspect they will tell the government to go **** themselves and take their masks off.

[Noah930]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

It’s just information. “Doom and Gloom” is your own emotional response to the information.

I disagree with that. The way headlines are written certainly tries to flavor the information presented. You have written for a living. You certainly are familiar with how certain words and the manner in which they're phrased can carry connotations, denotations, and inferences.

To wit: our government has recently passed this COVID bill worth $1.9T. Headlines proclaim how thousands will be cut off from these stimulus funds. They infer that is a negative thing--as if these are thousands of households who will now be starving or destitute. However, those who are being cut off from these additional funds are those with incomes between $80-100K--a demographic who most would agree is not hanging on the fringes of food or housing security. While the headlines are factually true, they are certainly phrased in a way to invoke an opinion before the information has been properly presented.

[pwd72s]

perhaps because they have trouble finding all those domestic terrorist cells Nancy says are out there...so back to the virus strains.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by Noah930

I disagree with that. The way headlines are written certainly tries to flavor the information presented. .

True, if you get your news from entertainment sources like Fox and CNN. But if you’re getting your information from for-profit, ratings driven info-tainment programs what else would you expect? If you don’t like hearing about COVID you can tune in to Fox and catch up on the Mr. Potatohead scandal.
This isn’t the latest fad, it’s the same old s#$t, different day.

[thor66]

Try talking to some people working for biomedical co.s and see what they say. It won't be a rainbow unicorn.

There is some real trouble headed our way and we are in race to develop vax and other drugs to deal with it before it gets here.

[cstreit]

Fear and anger drive clicks. They’re running out of stories about the previous president, so this is what’s next. By May even that will be boring.

I’m expecting a major new world scary thing to be played up about mid to late May.