[clairity]

hopefully covid sensationalism will open the eyes of more folks to this kind of emotionally-wearing manipulation. simple phrases like "could have" and "may" are simultaneously designed to be outwardly innocuous, seemingly informative, and highly effective in leading people to jump to overblown conclusions that keep readers heightened (i.e., stressed) so that they desire more information. it's the same primal anxiety you see in rabbits in open fields. news media will mash that button over and over again to get their little ad revenue stream while laying waste to your nervous and cardiovascular systems.

relatedly, my neighbor was just telling me yesterday how anxious and frazzled she's been for the past number of months. she's constantly following current events on npr, nytimes, facebook, instagram, and youtube. she's having a hard time concentrating and getting things done. she's yet to make the connection between these things herself, even with gentle (and even overt) nudging.

[JW_00000]

Hasn't this been going on for a very long time (possibly forever)? I'm thinking of the stress about North Korea launching nukes that would end the world, the stories about the EU banning curved bananas and thereby introducing totalitarianism, the idea that Brexit would eventually lead to WW3, the fear by some that Trump would cause the collapse of the US, the fear by others that Obama was a Muslim who would dismantle the US from the inside, the idea that George W. Bush would cause the collapse of the American democracy, the idea that 9/11 was an inside job, the idea that the Patriot Act was the end of freedom, etc. (I choose extremes from both sides on purpose.)

[clairity]

sure, it's been going on a long time, but younger humans tend to have to relearn this for themselves. hopefully the relentless fearmongering around covid reveals the mechanisms of sensationalism for more people.

practically all projections of power, as a critical feature of organizations, reach for heightened exaggeration to drive complicity. in that way, i'd reject 'both sides' as a false dichotomy. rather, any side--any significant organization, as a consolidation of power--will inevitably project misleading hyperbole, news media being no exception, and political parties being explicitly designed for it.

the bit that we need to keep relearning is the intertwining relationship between media and other organizations in shaping narratives for their own benefit, in opposition to the ideal of media keeping other organizations honest by disseminating information they'd otherwise wish to keep private. we the people have to continually keep organizations honest.