Blame the Media

Dear Micah,

               My family has suffered very much from the economy's travails and now things look like they might just be starting to get better. Yet everytime I click on the news they are reporting that jobs are falling again, or stocks are down, or spending is down and they make it sound like its all going to start up again. I know your not an economist, but I was sure you probably had an opinion on it all and I'd like to hear it.

               Luke

Dear Luke,

               As you have probably picked up on--I have an opinion about almost everything. The thing that I don't understand is why we as a people turn to CNN, Fox News, or MSN to tell us how we feel or what we believe. I knew that the economy was going downhill two years ago by simply living, working, shopping, and trying to pay my bills. I also can tell that it's getting better by the same means. I don't need the media to color my impressions of what's going on, because I cannot trust them to be accurate and unbiased. The media needs something to report each day, and if there aren't any interesting stories, then they'll just trot out the old "economy story" and give a new spin to awaken our fears and get us to tune in at 6 o'clock. I don't trust what the news broadcasts tell us and I believe that sometimes they are the cause of downturns because people hear them discuss polls or reports that have come out that hint at some negativity and it just fuels the fire of fear. Often these reports don't even affect us or mean that much, but if it happened to be a slow news day, it gets the headline. If anything else of any interest or merit had occurred that day then we wouldn't even be hearing the report that said "45% of Americans fear their jobs are in jeopardy". What we need is more attention-grabbing headlines to keep them from dredging up the economy stories. I think if Charlie Sheen would beat up another hooker and give the news something exciting to report our economy might heal quicker. So the answer to our country's troubles is for Hollywood to keep churning out the idiots. We need Lindsay Lohan to get drunk and stagger blindly down Hollywood Boulevard. We need NBC to try and replace Jay Leno one more time. We need to hear about Kanye making an ass of himself over something again. If Hollywood will cooperate and give the newsies something else to report, then our economy will be back on its feet in a matter of months. Maybe Congress should give tax breaks to the newsworthy as incentive.

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