11 O'Clock News

My girlfriend and I watched the 11pm news tonight, for the first time in many years. I must say, it's actually rather distressing when you look at it objectively.

When I was a child, the news had a fairly even balance. Bad news versus good news. Then I remember when The media started trying to be sensationalist about nonsense. "Killer Bees" became the buzzword. They started telling us how dangerous these Bees were going to be, how they were making their way towards our community and everyone was going to die.... From Bees.
Clearly they're full of shit, cause it's twenty years later and we're all still here.

Then 9/11 happened. And something change. We got so flooded with horrifying images that the whole country got desensitized to violence. It was horrible, but everyone was riveted to their TV's. And the media took notice. They realized that tragedy would bring in a larger audience than simply reporting the news. So instead of trying to improve everyone's moral they tried to hit us with even more tragedy.

Today when we turned on the news, every single story was a tragedy.

It's not the news anymore, it's a clip show celebrating all the worst things that happened recently. And they don't just report a tragedy once, they report it hundreds of times. They go behind the scenes and they interview the murderer's gardener and his pediatrician and damn near anyone they can find who ever met them.

Here's the truth:
We really don't want to get to know these murderers or terrorists. We want them stopped and we want their victims helped, rescued, or avenged.

But the media's fear-mongering has done more to help terrorists than any suicide bomber ever could.
They've spend years now campaigning for fear.

You want to really give a "Fuck you!" to terrorism?
Ignore them. They do what they do because:
A. We're doing something they don't like
B. We have something they want.
C. They want attention for their cause.
D. And they are batshit crazy.

Don't celebrate them.
Don't play their clips on the news.
Don't show their face.
Don't try to get their life's story.

Just stop them from doing it again, and move the fuck on.

It really irritates me that the NYC government dropped the ball at rebuilding the World Trade Center.
The best thing they could have done would have been to construct the buildings exactly as they were.
With a big-ass American flag in the courtyard.

Like saying to the world "Anything you destroy, we can rebuild. You're not stopping us. All you've done is piss us off."

Instead, with all the fear we get fed every day, the terrorists have won. We're scared. And the terrorists aren't even the cause. It's our own idiot media that's to blame.

The Fourth Estate has failed in it's duties.
It's not keeping the government honest, it's not even keeping itself honest. It's just one massive clusterfuck of skewed statistics and bullshit stories.

If you really want to hear the news, just watch the monologues of the latenight talk shows. They give you a concise digest of what's going on, but they keep it light hearted and brave. The Ruler of North Korea threatened to bomb us.
The media spread the story like wildfire and encouraged us to be afraid of this little man, with little bombs, in his little country.
The Late-night talk shows responded the proper way. They made fun of him. They pointed out how ridiculous the whole thing is.

We could turn that man's country into glass if he actually attacked us. But it's highly unlikely that he will, because he's on the opposite side of the world. He has much more danger from his neighbors to worry about. Attacking us would just be inviting his own destruction. But to remain safe from his neighbors he needs to look powerful. Which he apparently decided to do by trying to look intimidating to us.

And we let him. Our own stupid media backed the story and retold it constantly for weeks.

That's not news. There is always going to be some jackass saber rattling. If it's a real threat, tell us, but even then, it doesn't rate weeks of constant coverage. Cover the story then move onto the next story.

And while you're at it, how about doing some real reporting? Currently all of the TV stations run the exact same national stories. Does nobody pay journalists anymore?
I understand we're in the digital age, but that doesn't mean that everyone should stop doing their own research.

Get the facts straight, and stop trying to scare us.