The Manufactured Urgency Of Breaking News
Prior to the advent of 24-hour cable news networks, social media, or the internet of any kind, we relied on newspapers and the nightly news, televised on one of three networks, to inform us about what was going on in the world. There was a certain amount of distance between what was happening in the world, and our own personal lives. The events of the day might have had a relevant impact on our lives, but it wasn’t so eminent or fraught with such immediate danger. Is the world truly a more terrifying place than it used to be, or is it possible that we have simply allowed multinational media conglomerates to monetize our anxiety for profit? One of the main problems I have with television news, outside of the obvious heightening of tension and drama, is the fact that they don’t actually have enough news to fill their day. They take a news story that would take about three paragraphs in a decent newspaper, and they expand that out to 20 minutes plus commercials. They add in fancy graphics and animation, talking heads and paid experts, and then they discuss the three paragraphs of news. Everything is treated like a cliffhanger. It’s the FOMO of news gathering. Fear of missing out. We even have people who call themselves news junkies. They’re terrified they’ll miss out on the dopamine fix of hearing breaking news first and being able to disseminate that to their friends on social media.
They say that bad news travels fast. This concept first appeared in print in the 16th century. “Euill news neuer commeth to late.” Since then, the speed at which news travels has only gotten progressively faster. Despite this apparent progress, there is very little evidence that having information delivered quickly has been of any cultural benefit for most of us, outside of maybe military strategists and corporate raiders.
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