[wpietri]

I sometimes wonder about this too. But then I'll turn on the radio or get trapped in an airport with a TV set to the news. I feel my anxiety level creep up and up. Not from the factual content, which is familiar to me from print news. But from the emotional tone.

In some ways this is unsurprising. The business model of most broadcast media is to sell viewers to advertisers. The people running them are steeped in modern managerial thinking, where most individuals are yoked to a system of gaming specific metrics (e.g., viewers, pageviews, revenues, share price). We're (correctly) hardwired to treat danger as a priority. The obvious outcome is a sophisticated machine that can produce fear on demand.

For me, the winning move is not to play. I don't watch broadcast media. I don't listen to the radio. I use an ad blocker. I consider carefully what I click on. My anxiety level stays comfortably low. But I'd love to find a way to help more people.