Media creating a commotion where there is none

The BBQ Pit
1

Nothing irks me more than a news story that purposefully tries to create an uproar where there is none by leaving out an intregal part of the story or glossing over it on purpose.

The latest one that’s really been bugging me is some generic travel-news update on xm-radio. The headline:
“Think your getting fresh sheets at night when you stay at a hotel? Think again.”
The headline obviously grabbing one’s attention making them think ‘oh my gosh, when I get a room those may not be fresh sheets but someone elses!! Ewww’.
The story then goes on to name hotels by chain and tells you how they only change them every other night or every three days or in one chains case (god forbid) once a week!! And they purposefully emphasize these times to get you to think “Once a week? There could have been 6 different customers in there!”
Not only till the end of the story do they quietly gloss over the part that every customer gets new sheets. It’s only people with extended stays that the 1-2-3 times a week change goes into effect. And even then they will change them whenever you want if you request it.
So once you know that part of it you realize “Who cares? Probably nobody! Is this even a story? If it is it should be reported as a good thing since hotels are saving water and electricity by doing something that 95% of people would agree with. And even if your the 5% that wants fresh sheets every damn night, they’ll give them to you.”
So why do they instead report it as something to start an uproar or frenzy about?? There is nothing to start an uproar about!
I’m just getting sick of stories that try to create hype where there is none by twisting the story or purposefully leaving out parts.

2

OMFG!!? The hotels aren’t giving me fresh sheets, but instead sheets that somebody else used? Gross!! Eweeww!

(I’m a busy man and I didn’t have time to read your whole post, just the beginning. Excuse me now. I’m off to fight the good fight against the hotel industry!)

3

I’ve told this one before…

Several years ago in L.A. the local news (KNBC-4, IIRC) spent a few minutes warning of the dangers of sun tea. They claimed that bacteria live on tea leaves and can make people sick – maybe very sick. It was at the very end of the segment that they said that no one had ever been recorded as actually have gotten sick from drinking sun tea, but it could happen. :rolleyes:

(Incidentally, I’d been drinking sun tea for fifteen or twenty years by that time.)

4

They can pry my sun tea from my cold, dead, thirsty hands. If, in fact, it does make me sick and I die. :smiley:

I’m a risk taker, baby. That’s right.

5

Next up after the break - the hazards of disease that may be transmitted by paper towel litter!!!

6

Do you use scissors while chewing gum? Shocking secrets Trident and Staples have been hiding from you about this deadly combination! News at 10:00!

7

Rule of thumb: Anytime the teevee news says “you’re in danger, information later,” you’re not really in danger.

8

News at 11!

9

Only slightly off topic, Judge Judy was in the habit of doing this this at the beginning of each show. They would play some “danger music”, show one of the litigants in tabloid-vision, and have an announcer impart some shocking “fact.” This invariably turned out to be something silly.

The only one I remember was “They took her children!”, making it seem as if the defendant was a kidnapper. Turns out she was the babysitter.

10

I think that’s who creates most of these “scares” - the local news shows. In DC, Fox-5 is the most blatant of them - I can tell when it’s sweeps week because their teasers are all about the hidden dangers in seemingly innocent things. Just glancing at their web site, I see they’ve done reports warning us that shopping carts spread disease, and orthodontic headgear can poke you in the eye.

In most localities, there just aren’t enough daily news events to justify a daily, half-house news show, yet they still have to air them, and they still need to get their ratings. Combine that with “reporters” who were signed more for their hair than their journalistic ability, and you get a situation where the threshold for newsworthy is significantly lowered to the point where “any random hazard I can imagine” is news if they can find someone willing to talk to them about it.

11

Good gracious! I may have to stop rooting around in it and wiping it all over myself.

12

It’s not always local news. How about ABC’s PrimeTime Live. They sent interns to various colleges to “expose” the scandal of poor security of nuclear reactors in colleges.

The story, still on ABC’s web site describes:

A four-month ABC News investigation found gaping security holes at many of the little-known nuclear research reactors operating on 25 college campuses across the country. Among the findings: unmanned guard booths, a guard who appeared to be asleep, unlocked building doors and, in a number of cases, guided tours that provided easy access to control rooms and reactor pools that hold radioactive fuel.

The story and the tactics immediately came under fire as outlined here:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2005-10-13-abc-news-interns_x.htm
Several universities went on the offensive to debunk the report.

MIT’s response can be found here: http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/mit_assures_community_of_research_reactor_safety_9092

“MIT’s research reactor lab, which has operated safely for 47 years, offers tours for educational purposes to individuals by appointment. Two of ABC’s college interns requested a tour of the MIT lab in June, which was granted after MIT had learned through its comprehensive security checks that the interns were acting as undercover journalists for ABC News, but posed no security threat.”

While the reactor building at Purdue is open for students for classes and research, two sets of locked doors protect the reactor room, and admittance is only allowed by appointment and under the supervision of a staff member, Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., said in a statement.

The amount of fuel used in the Purdue reactor makes it unlikely to pose a threat, he said.

“Each university reactor is different, and ours is relatively small. It uses a tiny amount of fuel,” he said. “We do not use it to generate electricity. The heat from our reactor, when at full throttle, is the equivalent of that produced with 10 100-watt light bulbs.”

13

[Kent Brockman]

A popular soft drink may be poisoning your children! We won’t tell you which one until after sports and weather, coming up at 11:00.

[/KB]

14

On the first episode of The Colbert Report, Colbert and Stone Phillips had a contest for who could most effectively read ridiculous headlines with gravitas. One by Phillips–“If you’ve ever sat naked on a hotel bedspread, we have a story you won’t want to miss.”

15

TV news is entertainment. Entertainment either requires conflict or horror. Thus, the TV news is full of stories that either 1) pit one thing against another or 2) try to scare the shit out of you. TV news also needs to make money, so they put in the occasion promotion “news” spot done up by some corporation’s PR firm instead of paying their reporters to do any sort of serious story.

Nothing to see here, move along.

16

Actually, this is such a crusty old convention of news television that there is even an informal industry term for it: “Dropping the dead donkey.” Anchorpersons read a teaser for a lurid-sounding news story in order to make you tune in. Then they “drop the dead donkey” by reading the essentially inconsequential story.

17

“We will all die. Details at 11.”
At least that would be accurate.

18

Journalists: if you don’t know what you’re writing about, shut the fuck up. After a chemical explosion at a UMass Amherst lab, one reporter a while back wrote, “students are taught which chemicals require them to wear a protective hood.”

A hood is a 3’x5’x5’ ventilated metal box affixed to the wall.

Too many journalists should be writing for the Enquirer rather than a newspaper. If you’re as dumb as a brick, then write for a publication where the readers are dumb as bricks as well. Stop shitting up the normal paper with useless stories.

19

I’m still peeved at a the news on our local Fox affiliate calling the Aurora Borealis a “pink cloud” before a commercial break. It had gone by the time they stopped dicking around and told us what it was.

When’s the next Aurora Borealis going to be visibile from DC, again?

20

When a giant killer death comet blazes over the East Coast on its way toward the Atlantic Ocean. We’ll tell you when and what’ll happen, after Dr. Phil.