Broadcast and cable news networks are too tame with their headlines for my taste. When they tease a story with a headline like “Are toxic radiation clouds headed for Southern California?” I don’t feel the proper amount of terror to keep me on that channel to find out the truth (that while, yes, radioactive plumes are headed our way they will be so diluted and dispersed over time that they pose less threat than 20 minutes on the beach without sunscreen).
I need headlines, teases, and lead-ins that actually paralyze me with fear. I need my news organizations to fill me with so much dread that the only hope of relief from my horror will be their news anchors giving me calming reassurances. It helps a little bit to have them note that they have an “exclusive” report that I won’t find on any other station, but in this world of 24 hour news and the internet it’s hard for me to believe them.
I do like the cleverness in phrasing these headlines as a question (“Will Acid Rain Fall Over Southern California This Weekend?”) so when the inevitable letdown answer (“No”) comes they are covered by the fact that they were just asking the question, not really suggesting such a thing was ever a remote possibility. But I already know the truth because they’ve spent all day giving me real facts during informative stories that show the actual radiation levels on board an airplane at 30,000 feet or how radioactive a plastic plate manufactured in China over 40 years ago is. So all their rational, responsible reporting is diluting the fear they were trying to induce in me with the teaser headline.
They need to step it up to keep my interest, put it out there on the line. They need to stop hiding behind questions and make truly outrageous statements that they can easily refute when they get back from the commercial break. I know I wouldn’t change the channel if I heard something like “300 Foot Reptilian Monster Breathes Radioactive Fireballs At Passing Cargo Ships, we’ll have a full report when we come back” or “Waves Of Radiation Disintegrate The Moon, More Tsunamis Flood The Earth, that plus sports and the weather after these messages”. I would stay tuned through at least four commercials for that.
Even if, when they came back and told the true story, there was no mention of Godzilla or they had a highly respected physicist state that it is not possible to disintegrate a planetary body with the radiation produced by a terrestrial nuclear power plant. The fact is that if they want to keep me from changing the channel they’re going to have to give me something so bone-chilling and mortifying that I spend the commercial break changing my underwear and cleaning the wet spot off my couch rather than channel surfing.
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