Tuesday, January 27, 2009

TURN OFF AND TUNE OUT

I recently opened the online Leo Quinn (enews type) Letter.

In this one he gave 9 tips on how to survive the financial stress of the recession.

Here is #1

1) TURN OFF AND TUNE OUT

Author Barry Neil Kaufman writes "We stare bug-eyed at the eleven o'clock news, striving to be well informed, as if knowledge of the latest disasters will enhance our sense of well-being."

Why do you need to watch or listen to the news? Very few people NEED to get their information this way. Short of a tornado headed to your house, you can live your life quite nicely without 24/7 news. Try it for a week and see what happens.

Hearing or reading a growing number of voices like his must be disheartening to news media, which at every level is undergoing an unprecedented and very painful transformation.

To me, the glorious promise of 24/7 news was “deeper and more extensive” coverage. But that hasn’t happened. Instead we just get redundant coverage of the same stories, more and more strident and sensational, with more and more media outlets trying to make the news vs. covering it, and more and more a “culture of fear.”

I know some good journalists who agree but feel helpless to change the paradigm. I‘m proposing a solution. The news media should begin covering this as a news story.

Afterall, in the mid 1800’s, newspapers often took each other on about things like this.

Story after story now, at least those that result in feeding frenzies on 24/7 news….are clearly running up huge costs to the public…with little public good in return. Remember the coverage of the Duke Lacrosse “incident”?

If they had to be liable for costs the way us ordinarily citizens are…they’d be a whole lot more judicious. Not “chilled” as many would claim but judicious and responsible for the results of their actions on lives and livelihoods.

I certainly don’t believe in censorship and I love a free press. Plus, destination marketing and news media are inextricably associated and interdependent in many ways. But maybe the only way out of this 24/7 dog pile is to “turn off and tune out.”

Let’s just hope the good, responsible media outlets can stay afloat…

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