Ya know, sometimes all ya have to do is sit back an' pay attention to the noise.
The noise that all the pundits, commentators, reporters, and talking heads generate as they try desperately to fill 24 hours of unblinking airtime every day.
Wanna know what shape this country of ours is in?
Or where it's headin'?
Just look at the headlines.
MORE JOBS LOST IN MARCH.
NEW ENGLAND FLOODING DROWNS HOMES AND DREAMS.
OBAMA TO OPEN OFFSHORE AREAS TO OIL DRILLING ... Decision Keeps Vast Majority of America's Offshore Energy Resources Off Limits.
BUDGET CUTS MEAN MORE RATS IN NEW YORK.
NORTH KOREAN DEFECTOR IN US URGES "IDEOLOGICAL WARFARE".
FEDS INVESTIGATE DEATH THREATS TO IRS EMPLOYEES AFTER HEALTH BILL APPROVAL.
HOSPITAL TO STOP HIRING EMPLOYEES WHO ARE SMOKERS.
TOP SCIENTIST: WE CAN'T SAVE THE PLANET.
CIA: IRAN CAPABLE OF PRODUCING NUKES.
FRENCH CHEFS LOSE THEIR APPETITE FOR COOKING.
Some of those headlines matter... some don't.
Except for the people living them.
The French Chefs having trouble selling their restaurants probably don't care much about the flooding in New England.
Any more than those people in New England care much about a reservation at a French restaurant right now.
Most Americans probably don't care much about death threats to IRS agents.
But the families of those agents probably care a lot.
The point is, with a twenty four hour a day, seven day a week, instant news cycle, we are barraged by untold numbers of stories about things that don't matter much.
But those same irrelevant stories serve as great camouflage for the ones that matter.
And that camouflage does what it is intended to do by those who manage the news... add distraction, avoid analysis, create diversion.
When the message can be concealed by mischaracterizing the messenger, news can be managed.
When editing becomes opining, news can be managed.
And, when you can overwhelm the receptors of the viewing, listening, and reading public, news can be made to simply disappear.
The great journalists... the Swayze's, the Cronkite's, the Winchell's, the Pyle's, the Payne's, would hardly recognize their craft today.
Analysis and investigation, coupled with multiple sourcing and verification, led them to objectivity in reporting.
Those characteristics are largely gone today, replaced by newsreaders who can look and sound good for ten to fifteen second soundbites.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle often asked: "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"
In today's multimedia world, the impossibility is that every story, every news break, is directly related to what's actually happening.
“More firm and sure the hand of courage strikes, when it obeys the watchful eye of caution.” ---- James Thomson
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” ---- John Philpot Curran
