No News is Good News
House prices are down, economy slowing, kids on streets causing nuisance, people being knifed and murdered, alcohol on the tube is banned, jobs being cut..
It all seems doom and gloom. The media seems hell bent in ensuring that the world is perceived as a depressing and dangerous place to live. My wife refuses to watch the news these days as the relentless negative coverage and reluctance to report anything positive has crossed the line. What is more, the few positive stories that are put in are dumb. There is always a 'and finally' with some poor story about a saved hedgehog on a farm. It maybe feel-good but news it isn't.
I have to say that she has a point. It need not be this way and in fact could be argued that it is the news which drives a lot of our behaviours. If the news tells us that there is a huge debt built up and we are heading for a recession then people will stop spending. If they are told that house prices may fall then the instinct may be to sell now before the price drops thus pushing a glut of supply onto the market and driving down prices. While the media cannot be held entirely responsible for such problems their contribution is rarely acknowledged. The strange reality is a peculiar time warp where the media is able to predict symptoms in the near future which are in themselves the resultant cause of their prediction.
If people were educated about these things then the effect of such coverage would be lessened and maybe the media would change their approach. The evidence of the circulation of the tabloids (which tend to make up the extreme end of this problem) shows that the general population has yet to grasp these issues and demand a new approach. But is this a fair accusation to make? I think so. I look at two aspects, the first is whether there is evidence of this. I believe there is clear evidence of the cause effect reversal and manipulation. I am worried that my house price will fall but at the same time I have no intention of selling my house nor have I had it valued. My concern stems purely from media coverage. Why should I be worried (that is not to say that there are no people who should be worried). Another example is my concern about recession. If I have a job and do not lose it then why should I be worried. In fact the worry about potential job loss will drive a set of behaviours in the way I spend vs save that will reduce the amount of cash circulating in the economy. My ‘perception’ from the media that job losses are coming will certainly put me off a) moving house, b) buying that new TV and potentially stop me going on hols this year. But recession has not hit. Only predicted. So while the media may not be the cause of the initial prediction (growth slowing due to subprime issues) the recovery or prevention of slipping into recession will be much harder due to the increased pressure from behaviours changing due to media coverage.
The second part of this is about the outcomes from such coverage. Reactive knee jerk media coverage, mostly negative, results in shallow ill thought out knee jerk reactions from our politicians. Take knife crime. Kids on streets having nothing to do drives increases in knife crime. The media identifies a perceived cause and a set of symptoms and joins the dots for us. But I remember (although as a good friend once said, the plural of anecdote is not data) when I was a kid I used to hang around on street corners with my mates on the estate I used to live in. My parents were not rich (we could not afford foreign holidays) but I did not go short (there could always have been more but that is true of all kids views on material things). But we did not consider knifing another human being. We did not drink on the streets, we did not do drugs. This is probably true of the vast majority of young people even today. But kids hanging around on street corners being good (or at least not bad) is not news.
So we see the politicians wanting to put millions of pounds into youth centres so that kids have ‘something to do’. While arguably this is not a bad thing in its own right the issue is the mentality of the kids who perceive that carrying a knife or gun and using it on another human being is acceptable. It is NOT due to boredom and to label by the media as such drives the wrong behaviours from those who are empowered to try and sort out the problem. There are thousands of bored kids now who do not carryout such atrocious crimes. It is not boredom which makes a teenager take a knife and stab someone. It is a complete lack of respect and moral understanding of what is right and wrong or at least acceptable behaviour. No doubt some distraction can be created by inclusion in a youth centre but the fundamental problem of why the kid deems such actions acceptable lies elsewhere.
The media needs to start doing 2 things.
Reporting positives in society. The constant negative drives the perception of what is normal in society. Which fuels the insular and shallow view of the world many have today. I am not proposing more squiggy squirrel stories but as my wife outlined, more on culture, on sport (and I do not mean relentless football results), more on science, more on the positive breakthroughs in medicine. Huge amounts of good is done every day which is totally ignored. New drugs are created to help solve diseases, countries are helped reduce poverty, new inventions are discovered, sportsmen and women achieve new greats regularly. Reporting on the good and the great drives one to want to take part in success rather than hide from failure
Focus on the real causes of issues rather than the symptoms. This requires more in depth and rational views to be taken into consideration. This will help prevent the knee jerk popular media appeasing policies. Taking alcohol off the tube will not stop the anti social behaviours we all hate on Saturday night. In all my years in London on the tube I have never seen someone enter the tube with reasonable behaviour, drink and start causing trouble. The cause of the behaviour is not those who sit quietly with a tin of beer (as I have often seen) but those who turn up drunk and already loud. Ban people who appear drunk on the tube and it would be a real improvement. Stop the drunks from entering the tube at the stations. Stop them getting on busses. This drives a whole set more problems (what to do if you are drunk and stuck in London) but the time and effort to police people with tins of beer will not solve the problem, just take up police time.
The balance of individual rights over the good for society has drifted too far. Political correctness is always measured on an individual basis. Even kids talk of their rights but the imbalance between our rights and the good for society drives a culture where anything goes. Teachers have limited powers to discipline kids. Parents are banned from smacking. The liberals who believe that young children can be reasoned with are wrong. Given the number of adults in this country who clearly do not understand right from wrong (I do not mean absolutes here but the ability to even determine or care that there might be wrongs) how will we teach discipline. I am not saying that our morals have slipped as evidence clearly shows a history of poor moral fibre. But the idea of morals needs to be re-established amongst the problematic young.
The media needs to step up and take responsibility for how their actions and negative reporting is affecting society. The young need to see world of opportunity and role models rather than negative imagery and hopelessness. Society has become numb to advertising, it has understood the consequences of dumbing down, it has lost confidence in politics and is becoming more and more insular. The media can help reverse this perception and in true competitive commercialisms the first to move will take the lead. The country is ready for a new approach.
It all seems doom and gloom. The media seems hell bent in ensuring that the world is perceived as a depressing and dangerous place to live. My wife refuses to watch the news these days as the relentless negative coverage and reluctance to report anything positive has crossed the line. What is more, the few positive stories that are put in are dumb. There is always a 'and finally' with some poor story about a saved hedgehog on a farm. It maybe feel-good but news it isn't.
I have to say that she has a point. It need not be this way and in fact could be argued that it is the news which drives a lot of our behaviours. If the news tells us that there is a huge debt built up and we are heading for a recession then people will stop spending. If they are told that house prices may fall then the instinct may be to sell now before the price drops thus pushing a glut of supply onto the market and driving down prices. While the media cannot be held entirely responsible for such problems their contribution is rarely acknowledged. The strange reality is a peculiar time warp where the media is able to predict symptoms in the near future which are in themselves the resultant cause of their prediction.
If people were educated about these things then the effect of such coverage would be lessened and maybe the media would change their approach. The evidence of the circulation of the tabloids (which tend to make up the extreme end of this problem) shows that the general population has yet to grasp these issues and demand a new approach. But is this a fair accusation to make? I think so. I look at two aspects, the first is whether there is evidence of this. I believe there is clear evidence of the cause effect reversal and manipulation. I am worried that my house price will fall but at the same time I have no intention of selling my house nor have I had it valued. My concern stems purely from media coverage. Why should I be worried (that is not to say that there are no people who should be worried). Another example is my concern about recession. If I have a job and do not lose it then why should I be worried. In fact the worry about potential job loss will drive a set of behaviours in the way I spend vs save that will reduce the amount of cash circulating in the economy. My ‘perception’ from the media that job losses are coming will certainly put me off a) moving house, b) buying that new TV and potentially stop me going on hols this year. But recession has not hit. Only predicted. So while the media may not be the cause of the initial prediction (growth slowing due to subprime issues) the recovery or prevention of slipping into recession will be much harder due to the increased pressure from behaviours changing due to media coverage.
The second part of this is about the outcomes from such coverage. Reactive knee jerk media coverage, mostly negative, results in shallow ill thought out knee jerk reactions from our politicians. Take knife crime. Kids on streets having nothing to do drives increases in knife crime. The media identifies a perceived cause and a set of symptoms and joins the dots for us. But I remember (although as a good friend once said, the plural of anecdote is not data) when I was a kid I used to hang around on street corners with my mates on the estate I used to live in. My parents were not rich (we could not afford foreign holidays) but I did not go short (there could always have been more but that is true of all kids views on material things). But we did not consider knifing another human being. We did not drink on the streets, we did not do drugs. This is probably true of the vast majority of young people even today. But kids hanging around on street corners being good (or at least not bad) is not news.
So we see the politicians wanting to put millions of pounds into youth centres so that kids have ‘something to do’. While arguably this is not a bad thing in its own right the issue is the mentality of the kids who perceive that carrying a knife or gun and using it on another human being is acceptable. It is NOT due to boredom and to label by the media as such drives the wrong behaviours from those who are empowered to try and sort out the problem. There are thousands of bored kids now who do not carryout such atrocious crimes. It is not boredom which makes a teenager take a knife and stab someone. It is a complete lack of respect and moral understanding of what is right and wrong or at least acceptable behaviour. No doubt some distraction can be created by inclusion in a youth centre but the fundamental problem of why the kid deems such actions acceptable lies elsewhere.
The media needs to start doing 2 things.
Reporting positives in society. The constant negative drives the perception of what is normal in society. Which fuels the insular and shallow view of the world many have today. I am not proposing more squiggy squirrel stories but as my wife outlined, more on culture, on sport (and I do not mean relentless football results), more on science, more on the positive breakthroughs in medicine. Huge amounts of good is done every day which is totally ignored. New drugs are created to help solve diseases, countries are helped reduce poverty, new inventions are discovered, sportsmen and women achieve new greats regularly. Reporting on the good and the great drives one to want to take part in success rather than hide from failure
Focus on the real causes of issues rather than the symptoms. This requires more in depth and rational views to be taken into consideration. This will help prevent the knee jerk popular media appeasing policies. Taking alcohol off the tube will not stop the anti social behaviours we all hate on Saturday night. In all my years in London on the tube I have never seen someone enter the tube with reasonable behaviour, drink and start causing trouble. The cause of the behaviour is not those who sit quietly with a tin of beer (as I have often seen) but those who turn up drunk and already loud. Ban people who appear drunk on the tube and it would be a real improvement. Stop the drunks from entering the tube at the stations. Stop them getting on busses. This drives a whole set more problems (what to do if you are drunk and stuck in London) but the time and effort to police people with tins of beer will not solve the problem, just take up police time.
The balance of individual rights over the good for society has drifted too far. Political correctness is always measured on an individual basis. Even kids talk of their rights but the imbalance between our rights and the good for society drives a culture where anything goes. Teachers have limited powers to discipline kids. Parents are banned from smacking. The liberals who believe that young children can be reasoned with are wrong. Given the number of adults in this country who clearly do not understand right from wrong (I do not mean absolutes here but the ability to even determine or care that there might be wrongs) how will we teach discipline. I am not saying that our morals have slipped as evidence clearly shows a history of poor moral fibre. But the idea of morals needs to be re-established amongst the problematic young.
The media needs to step up and take responsibility for how their actions and negative reporting is affecting society. The young need to see world of opportunity and role models rather than negative imagery and hopelessness. Society has become numb to advertising, it has understood the consequences of dumbing down, it has lost confidence in politics and is becoming more and more insular. The media can help reverse this perception and in true competitive commercialisms the first to move will take the lead. The country is ready for a new approach.
posted by So long and thanks for all the fish at
10:59 am
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