Journalists suffer from the crisis crisis, warping America’s vision

Summary: The news is all about fear. Each day journalists flood the media with exaggerated stories of imminent doom without useful context. This slant to the news warps our perception of the world, with ill effects on America’s public policy. It’s the crisis crisis, as described by Peter Moore in a prescient article from Playboy in 1987. He thought it was bad then; it’s many times worse today.

 

Excerpt from “The Crisis Crisis”

By Peter Moore
From Playboy, March 1987

It’s bad news Biblical style: Plagues of swarming journalists are swallowing — and selling — every doomsday scenario in sight. Picture a crowded bar. Three television sets hang from the ceiling, tuned in to the network feed. This is a high tech joint, so there are competing amusements, as well: MTV: on wall-sized monitors, dueling jukeboxes, video games with synthetic voices. On top of this racket, there’s the festive roar of conversation.

That is, until the news comes on. Talk stammers to a halt and eyes are cast upward; they dart from screen to screen. The anchor men begin to talk loudly, and they’re talking crisis: drugs, vanishing rain forests, terrorism, Armageddon. They’re inflating stories to ten times their natural size, decrying the end of the world. Their graphics are flashier than video games, their footage better than MTV, their high-tension talk scarier than s-f.

In the face of this onslaught, the patrons can’t concentrate; they can’t even think. Aghast, afraid, they gulp their drinks as the hysteria level rises.

When they’ve got a crisis to hawk, news magazines love to start stories in italics. In that type face, they can get away with anything: apocalyptic fiction that would otherwise be out of place in straight journalism, even overextended metaphors for American society like the one in the paragraphs above. Italic type can also clear the way for a single anecdote to stand in for the latest trend that’s ravaging society, and it lays the groundwork for paragraphs that begin, “The sad story of Bob J. is all too familiar in America today. He represents an insidious epidemic that is sweeping. …”

As it so happens, America today is suffering an epidemic of nation-sweeping events unseen since the Biblical plagues in Egypt. In the attack of the killer trends, we are terrified on Monday by a crisis we scarcely knew existed the previous Friday, and Monday’s dark portent, in turn, gives way to the next week’s hysteria.

In horrific succession, herpes anxiety is overtaken by the plague of AIDS, which is followed by the shocking specter of Third World debt. After a brief but chilly nuclear winter, we are threatened by our own national-debt crisis and devastated by starvation in Ethiopia; then it’s back to our leaky ozone layer. Terrorists are suddenly in our midst, then the homeless-until all is swept away by crack mania.

The problems appear, the alarms sound, the cover stories and the special reports proliferate. Then the media lose interest, and it’s on to the next disaster. The phenomenon is so pernicious, it’s worthy of a cover story all its own: Call it the Crisis Crisis.

Nobody would tell you that our bloated national debt is a healthy sign, that AIDS is a passing annoyance or that crack is good for you. These are serious problems deserving of serious reporting and concerted follow-through – if only that would happen.

No, the Crisis Crisis is not a matter of what’s reported, it’s a matter of who reports the bad news and how it’s reported. This new menace spring from the number of news outlets competing to force tragic trends down our throats and the vehemence with which they deliver the goods. …

{Moore recounts some of the endless fear attacks that have afflicted America during the past decade. The drug crisis, described by Newsweek’s editor “as pervasive and as dangerous in its way as the plagues of medieval times.” The crisis from rising liability insurance costs! Radon gas in our homes! All real, but grossly exaggerated.}

The swarming critters gnawing on the landscape these days are not locusts but news-hungry journalists …Fueling their appetites is the intense competition for attention …the networks have given the public what they wanted, which is the first rule of merchandising. But when the product being sold is the news, that age-old hustle takes on a whole new meaning. …

———————- End excerpt ———————-

Conclusions

As Moore implies, the crisis crisis has its roots in the excess supply of journalists (as seen in the many events with hordes of reporters screaming identical questions). Their desperate search for exciting stories has helped trash their credibility. For details see The long slow crash of journalism. How will it affect us?

That’s only half the equation, about the supply of stories about crises. What about the demand? Journalists write stories appealing to our fears. The skilled political engineers running large movements influence us by appealing to our fears. They would not do this if we did not like to read them.

Why have we become so fearful? How has this tilt in the news affected us, and America? Those are important question, to be discussed on another day.

For More Information

For a deeper understanding of this read Tom Engelhardt’s The United States of Fear. For something different, subscribe to Playboy Magazine.

If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about fear, about journalism, and especially these…

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