HotAir on a sure to be widely forwarded essay by an anonymous veteran local TV news anchor, on what’s wrong with your local news:
I’ve used the example of breast implants, but the formula works for any perceived wrongdoing. And even if trial lawyers aren’t involved, victim status is — with the promise of fixing the boo-boo — “Working for you.” As one news director I worked for once said, “There are lots of things to be afraid of out there.”
Indeed, cancer, household bacteria, child predators, hot weather, cold weather, tap water, electromagnetic fields, vaccinations, Chinese food, Mexican food, racism, fertilizers, homophobia, hate crimes, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
And, who is most likely to be afraid of these threats? Well, the mainstream media machine, cynically and manipulatively, believes it’s that key demographic group, women ages 18-49. They, according to consultants and marketing executives, control the household remote and make the buying decisions. No. One. Else. Matters.
In an ultimate display of hypocritical sexism, your local liberal newsroom treats women of that coveted demographic group as if they were frightened wards of the nanny state, as if they were children incapable of weighing risk against advantage, detriment against benefit. It plies them with a daily dose of all the things one must be afraid of. And it cynically taps into those traits that evolution has bestowed women with in greater quantity than men — compassion and empathy.
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Ed Morrissey calls the observations/implications sexist, which is a weird word for a conservative to use, if you mean it as “an obvious, commen sense observation about the differences between men and women.”
Women are obsessed with this nonsense. They get totally hyper about imaginary “threats,” especially to their children: asthma, peanut allergies, helmet wearing, lead in toys, whatever.
I don’t just mean little old “Miss Pittypat” ladies, who are the worst for this “local news” stuff, tsking and tutting about the latest “case of cancer” or plane crash or missing kid because it makes them feel like they have a life.
Anyone who has every worked in an office knows that women of any age are like this. The women in it (when they aren’t bringing work to a grinding halt with the latest birthday/engagement/pregnancy party or showing you their ultrasounds (ugh) or talking about what they had for breakfast/what they want for lunch/what they’re having for dinner) are always talking talking talking about this crap.
And they haven’t got a scientific bone in their bodies. They don’t understand statistics or degrees of probability or orders of magnitude. Women ARE mostly “incapable of weighing risk against advantage, detriment against benefit.”
The story mentions the “breast implants give you lupus” scare. I have/had lupus, and I sure as hell don’t have breast implants. “One in 100 women with breast implants will get lupus!” But one in 100 women get lupus anyway. Lupus isn’t a “rare” disease, but women don’t know what “rare” means.
Women love these “child molesters are everywhere”/”danger in your medicine cabinet” stories because getting all worked up about them sort of convinces them (and, they hope, anybody watching them) that they really “care” about their children— whereas, if they really did care about them, they’d be at home with them instead of working for half a paycheque at some 90-minute-each-way cubicle job, shuffling pointless pieces of paper between cubicles and complaining about how it’s always too hot or too cold “in this crazy office” because they “need” to have a “career.”
Marie Curie had a career. You probably don’t.
Anyway, local news is a waste of time. Especially in Toronto, where every local station competes to have the most ethnically diverse reporter pool, so they can send the more or less appropriate color person into whatever “community” is killing each other/wetting itself about something “back home” today.
Torontonians pretend to hate Americans, but what is THE lead story every other night? “FAMOUS AMERICAN PERSON CAME TO TORONTO TODAY!!!”
Otherwise Toronto news is just as stupid as your local news: this year’s “new way to sneeze” instructions, and recalls of harmless household products because some stupid kid died in the same room with it.
If someone I know dies in a house fire or car accident, I don’t want to hear about it on the news.
And if I don’t know the person — why the hell should I care?
(I’m not talking about 9/11. I mean normal happenings and natural disasters. Earthquakes happen. Floods happen. Sometimes it snows too much. People die. Jezuz.)
Then there’s the insufferable local boosterism. Your city is just an accidental location on a map with a particular area code. Why do you insist on imbuing a particular longitude and latitude with the qualities of a semi-sentient being? Weird.
Sports? ‘Roided up cheaters running back and forth for no reason. Weather? Wrong half the time anyway. Look out the window.
Be honest: local news is that flickering noise that’s on in the background while you’re eating dinner, if you “watch” it at all. It could disappear tomorrow and you’d never know or care.
