Some fear is good but it needs to be directed at real threats. I found “The Gift of Fear” a great book. It looks at the top fears parents have like abduction, etc & gives real statistics around how likely they are to happen (not very). It then tells you what is more likely to happen and gives you real, age appropriate things to tell your children to keep them safer (like telling them to look for a woman to help them if they get lost NOT a man in a uniform). I found that once I had more real information I could filter out more of the fearmongering.

As for the “rational analysis,” again you’re speaking of elite products not consumed by the general public. Fox News is the top cable channel, enough said.

You are speaking in ideals, not reality. It would be nice for people to gather information from numerous sources, evaluate facts and form their own opinion. My argument is this doesn’t happen. Especially in America where it seems ALL news outlets cling to one headline and bang the hell out of it.

“If you scare them, they will watch.”

Firstly, network news is hardly the only source of news available. There is a lot of rational and thoughtful analysis from good media such as the Economist, the New York Times, The New Yorker, International Affairs, good blogs, and a host of other in depth magazines and quarterlies that I won’t list here.

Furthermore, I am not sure if you are implying this or not, but not being informed about the issues facing society by not reading news makes for bad citizens and an unthoughtful demos, which I find far more politically disturbing than some crappy network news story.

The quotation about the individual who feels he should be flying high because he has a job is a pretty misinformed opinion. The option isn’t either to run around like a chicken with no head or to sit blissfully ignorant or uncaring of social issues. The better approach is to stay informed, think in depth about the issues, consider the problems that other members in society are facing, and hopefully either act to improve that situation or at least be informed enough about it to be politically efficacious when the time comes.

Isn’t the burden on individuals to think broadly and behave rationally and demand better news? These news angencies wouldn’t tell stories like this if there wasn’t a market for them. I think it is absoultely crucial to militate against a demogogic press – “A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will in time produce a people as base as itself.” – Joseph Pulitzer – and I have no respect for those news agencies that behave in that way. However, the burden is both on us and on journalists.

And, who under 50 watches the ‘6 oclock’ news anymore?

I guess objective news is just boring and does not create viewership.

But some analysts say the media are collectively going overboard. “Of course we’re doing too much to scare people,” said Mark Feldstein, a former correspondent for NBC, ABC and CNN who teaches journalism at George Washington University. “Cable news has 24 hours to fill, and there isn’t 24 hours of exciting news going on. If you scare people, they’ll tune in more.” At the same time, he noted, “we don’t yet know the parameters of how big this is going to be.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/27/AR2009042703762.html