Selling our Difficult Economic Times

The media has always driven me crazy. Mostly because the fluff and stuff of things we force ourselves to be interested in combined with the over-hyping of what might have been a good story...if it were true...in order to get viewers. I would be willing to bet many if not most or even all of you have fallen prey to this madness as their most common bait and switch is the weather, especially on a slow news day. They promote, using film reel from a snow storm ten years ago, the potential of "bad weather" in order to get you to tune in later for a full forecast when low and behold, there is a 10% chance of snow that rarely holds true. All the while, shoppers swarmed their local Walmart buying them out of bread, milk and snow shovels.

Well, in these difficult economic times, the media has turned its focus on what appears to catch the attention of their consumer these days, our difficult economic times. Tossing the word "economy" into their daily spots to entice viewers to tune in with lead ins like "more news on the economy tonite at 10" in order to maintain ratings, which ironically keeps their economy headed in the right direction. Most viewers then tune in thinking "what now, some other car manufacturer hitting the pavement face first, another mortgage company getting a bail out in order to make good their bonuses for CEOs." Oh no, not that at all. Turns out the promo got you to tune in for a trumped up human interest piece on how a local coffee shop was going to cure the economy through the ever famous "take a penny, leave a penny" tray program.

My wife will tell you that I despise the news. And, well, its true. The news they promote all day, including the damn weather, is never ultimately newsworthy. But like the weather when everyone panics over a mildly true report, the repetitive use of the economy as a lead in, only deepens Americans fears that the economy is bad and only getting worse. Its only made out to be news you might be interested in for the purpose of ratings. No ratings, no commercials. No commercials, no news program and to an end, no profit. Even in this difficult economic time, money still makes the world go around and media outlets are not non-profit organizations. So remember before you tune in next time that you are a customer being sold a bill of goods. In these difficult economic times, I suggest you save your money and tune them out.