While freedom of speech is a wonderful thing it has some not so wonderful side effects sometimes. A prime example of this is the media's fear campaign. Now, you're probably thinking I'm nuts right about now, but let me explain. Fear sells. Plain and simple, it's a fact. People want to know what happened to the little girl that got kidnapped and if she's alive or not. They want to know about whether or not the mass murderer on the six o'clock news was captured by the time ten o'clock news aired. To report nothing of consequence, or all good things, just doesn't get the ratings and reviews of reporting all the bad and horrible stuff.
It's good to know about the world around us, I won't argue with that, but ten twenty-four hour news channels? Someone's gotta draw the line somewhere. With ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNBC, CNN, FNC, MSNBC, and possibly more. You can find out the same info from a bunch of different sources all at the same time. So, what makes you watch one over the other? Whoever gets the info first. It's a feeding frenzy, they all jump over a hot news story like a bunch of paranas just hoping for the first nibble of something more, for the first hint that maybe it's connected to something else or is bigger than what it seems. They don't wait for the facts to be confirmed, they just accuse. There's no trial, no jury, they pick the victim and the culprit before they know what's going on. There's no telling how many lives have been ruined by such accusations over the years. The US Justice System goes by innocent till proven guilty, but the media goes by guilty till proven innocent.
Every casualty in Iraq has been reported on a daily basis, whether it be from enemy fire or a simple accident. It looks like a lot of people, or that's what the media wants it to look like, however we have more people die every day from car crashes. The death count in Iraq from March 2003 to July 2008 is 4,125 people.(1) In just 2003 there were 42,884 people killed from automobile related injuries.(2) That's over ten times those that were killed in Iraq in five years that were killed by cars in our own country in one year. Considering that as of December 1998 there was a total of 58,193 people killed in Vietnam this is the least casualties we've ever had during a war.(3) Wars are bloody, people do die, but this war has had the fewest casualties on our side of ANY war our nation has fought. Yet according to the media it's the bloodiest battle our nation has ever seen, or at least that's what they want you to believe.
Drama sells, so I can't necessarily blame the media companies for how they do business. However, I do blame the people who make it a profitable business for them. Gossip columns, the news "as we see it", everything that's put in print by a "news" organization has to be a fact according to some people. The problem with this is that it's not always a fact, and a lot of times it's part facts and part guesswork. Sometimes it's just a little bit of fact and a whole lot of suspicion. If everyone didn't buy into the Fear Business and thought things through, they might have a better view on the world today as it really is, not just as what news people are selling.
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