The Hype Machine
It hit me like a ton of bricks yesterday. I was on my way to pick up my daughter from school. I like to listen to one of the sports radio stations when I travel to help pass the time. In the span of 45 minutes, I heard a loud siren go off on the radio with the booming announcer voice saying, “Breaking Houston Texans news.”
I braced for the worst. Had David Culley hired Rich Kotite as a consultant? Had Deshaun Watson been traded to the Eagles for a cheesesteak? Maybe Whitney Merciles had his leg amputated in a freak drive by cupcake wars accident. Nope, both of the lawyers in Watson’s long-going legal battle spoke today. Mind you nothing actually happened in the case. They just spoke.
That news required three sirens. That was only in the scant 45 minutes I listened on the radio. A part of this is by design. The siren went off three different times because radio people are taught to reset every conversation every 15 minutes. Most people only listen for that long. They certainly don’t listen to an entire show continuously. That makes sense.
For people in my age bracket, 24 hour news (along with talk radio and other forms of commentary) is a relatively new phenomenon. At least it popped up in our lifetime. Headline News and CNN weren’t there when we were kids. There might have been the occasional call in show with a bloviating blowhard on the other end, but it certainly wasn’t the cultural sensation it is today.
We certainly didn’t have Fox News or MSNBC to contend with. This doesn’t even mention really partisan stuff like OANN, Newsmax, and The Young Turks. When 24 hour news came out I was hopeful. Instead of tiny five minute chunks on the evening news, maybe these networks could dedicate an hour or two to do deep dives into issues.
Instead of just a casual mention of Islam, maybe they could spend a couple of hours talking the differences between Sunnis and Shiites. Maybe they could offer a tutorial on the origins of the religion and how that evolved into the factions and geopolitical strife from today. Maybe a lengthy special about the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians would be huge.
Instead of educating, the radio and television networks have chosen to incite. Of course, this is not universally true. There are people that give terrific background on key issues that could educate the public. The problem is that even with those few people, the education is used as a tool to persuade. It is a powerful tool and an effective tool, but it is still a tool at the end of the day.
Instead, the networks have chosen to amplify conflict and rotate an endless supply of trivia and minutia on a mindless loop. The effects are meticulously planned and savagely executed. Even though the typical audience tunes in for 15 minutes at a time, there is a dedicated audience and they get subjected to the amplification effect. Talk about something for five minutes and I’m informed. Talk about it for four hours straight and I’m outraged.
That’s assuming the very best. That’s assuming that as a news department I have an eye for accuracy and a desire to report the facts. If my aims are somewhat more sinister then I can fill people’s heads with crap and get them outraged out of thin air. So, people start raging about big government taking their guns, rationing their meat, and implanting a microchip inside of a miniscule vaccine.
Even if you aren’t peddling crap, you are still blowing things well out of proportion. Even the truth in excessive amounts loses context. Even something 100 percent accurate can distort the truth if the significance is overblown. Simply put, outrage and stress are drugs. Like any drug, it loses its effectiveness over time. Our body becomes resistant to it. Only more of it will make an impact. That one cup of coffee doesn’t wake me up anymore. Now I need two. The outrage at 50 percent volume isn’t getting under my skin anymore. You better crank it up to 75 percent.
To borrow from the Watson situation, I posed a question in the station forum about the need for sirens. Simply put, what is going to happen when real news comes down? Will there be a louder siren? Will there be a voiceover destined to give me heart palpitations? How will we differentiate real breaking news from the trumped up crap we have been peddling as “breaking news?” Will any of us possibly give a damn by that point?
I have often wished PBS or MSNBC would put on civics classes. And really take the time to explain exactly what’s going on, with the pros and cons of any proposed legislation.
1A thoughtful piece but how sure are you that people stay with the stations only 15 minutes?
2@Harry #2
I have NPR on all day, every day. It’s at a low volume. If something catches my attention, I’ll turn it up and listen to the story.
Even when I’m on my morning walk with headphones and NPR, my attention wanders.
I think that’s what Nick means. Even if we’re watching / listening all the time, we’re not necessarily paying attention for more than 15 minutes at a stretch.
3Excellent point/question Harry. I think the 15 minutes is specific to radio as most people only listen while they are in transit. However, with the advent of the radio app and popularity of podcasts that might be changing too. It would be an interesting study to find out if that assumption is still true and how programming could be adapted to meet new trends.
In television, the question is whether I’m watching just Rachel or whether I’m tuning into Chris, Rachel, Lawrence, and Brian. The same is true on the other side. If all four hosts are covering the same topic then there is a very intentional amplification effect. Even minor stories become hugely significant simply based on the amount of time dedicated to them. Ergo, we begin to struggle when asked to differentiate between the mundane and the truly significant.
4You make some good points Nick. Always enjoy reading your viewpoint. For people in my age bracket,(I’m 76) and travel experience (military brat who attended 14 different schools, and while married lived in 16 different places) I’m willing to take it as it comes. As a teenager in the sixties I was outraged that our local radio station would only carry rock and roll one hour an evening. Now you can’t get away from any noise anywhere. As you said, news and weather was on for five minutes, usually on the hour and half hour. Now there’s special channels for just news.
5When Trump was in office I would watch the national evening news and read articles about the government on my computer. Now I don’t pay much attention. I read Juanita Jean and a couple of others everyday. But there is so much information everywhere and someones always yelling about it, that its tough to process. No one seems to want to have a civil discussion. I don’t listen to any of the talking heads on any station,TV or radio. I read what interests me and make up my own mind.
As for entertainment, I have shelves full of CDs so I can pick what suits my mood. I love streaming services because of the variety. If I’m in the mood for violence there’s John Wick or for comedy theres Lucy. All at my fingertips.
One of my grandchildren whined the other day that “There’s nothing good to watch on TV” I said “Try having only 3 channels to watch. And reruns were in the summer”
Things have changed and will again, live with it.
I hit my breaking point in 2004, sometime during the summer when election coverage was confined to who was where and the blow dried bobble heads were so busy flapping their own gums that nobody heard a word either candidate said. I decided I was sick and tired of being lied to by omission and switched to a Simpson’s rerun, which actually had more current events than the news did.
I get my news in print now, both subscription and online. My blood pressure is certainly a lot better these days.
6Crazy Quilter’s reminder of the 3 channel era made me think about the concept in a different way.
7I remember seeing Don Henley in an interview decades ago.
He was criticizing television news for just delivering the facts. (I’m paraphrasing).
But I remember him saying “Where’s the analysis?”
And I totally agreed.
I freely admit that my hindsight’s not actually 20/20, being colored by my experience and opinion.
So while I think me and ole’ Don may have been naive, I personally wouldn’t have believed anybody who could’ve forseen our situation now.
And I read 1984.
I think I arrogantly believed our society would’ve learned from history and were immune from this kinda manipulation.
This just in…. Breaking NEWS! (on a story, 8 hours old).
8cnnbsox exclusive…NY times is reporting! (although we haven’t confirmed this independently)!
What passes for news these days takes the joy out of repetition.
Warpster: my breaking point came in 2002, when Bush and Cheney were drumming up support for pouring money into Halliburton by flogging stories of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and eliding that with the 9/11 attack.
Some reporter asked Bush why the terrorists hated the US, and he put on his smug and stupid look and said “they hate us for our freedoms”. Precisely when the Republicans were pushing bills to deprive us of just those freedoms. No reporter pushed back, or called him out on it. At that point, I turned off the TV and have not yet turned it on again. It’s still sitting down in the basement in a closet, completely unmissed.
It’s made life vastly better. In the past 20 years not once has there been any news that could not wait until the evening or the next morning, when it’s covered by papers, magazines, or the Internet. The only exception is weather, but it’s easier to hear the tornado sirens with the TV off. I do keep up with the local university sports schedule … so that I can avoid the part of town with the stadium and basketball palace when games are scheduled.
“But Perfessur, how do you avoid Fox News blaring in airports and public venues?” Easy: foam ear plugs, with noise-cancelling headphones over the ears. With a book in hand, they makes flights vastly better also.
9P.P.,
I came very close to quoting Dirty Laundry at the beginning. It was a late edit.
10Me too, Nick. But referencing and posting links to music as often as I do, I refrained.
11But since you brought it up, IIRC in that same interview he tells the story of somebody at one of the networks who made a tape of one or more of their news anchors lip syncing to the song. At the desk. Apparently it made it’s way around to the other two networks where they did the same, editing it together so that anchors and their competitors collaborated on the video.
Then sent it Don to show that they got it.
Can’t imagine why he seemed so proud of that.
Ok, so I think I just self-validated a couple things.
12#1. My hindsight is most definitely not 20/20. And
#2. YouTube and all the other intertubes, no matter how much I rail against them, are revoltingly efficient at demonstrating #1.
I hadn’t thought about that Henley story for years, but the way I told it is most definitely the way I remember it.
But unless the YouTube video recorded in 1985 was a diabolically prescient conspiracy prank set up 36 years ago, I was wrong.
Apologies to anybody I may have misled.
But just in case, to any conspirators from 36 years ago.
13Well played.
🙂