The vast majority of the media, be it newspapers, television, or radio, has a massive online presence. More and more news sites are now only online.
As such, the number of clicks each site receives in an hour, a day, a week, a month, and a year translates into advertising dollars and becomes the lifeblood which finances those sites and pays the bills.
The coronavirus and the now collectively tens of thousands of negative, fear-inducing stories being pumped out 24/7 has become the mother of all click-cash-cows for the media. It’s as if these sites have been given a bottomless pit of click-cat-nip and the executives, editors, and reporters can’t stop gorging themselves.
Unfortunately, to get to that cat-nip, they had to open – or create – a Pandora’s Box. Once open, they have now discovered that not only can’t they close it, but the click-cat-nip is poisonous and now infecting themselves as well as their families.
How many “rising death-toll” stories and charts can they trumpet non-stop? Especially when those numbers are but of fraction of those who lost their lives during the Swine flu pandemic of 2009 – 2010.
Beyond that, it can be argued that much of this negative coverage is being driven by a desire to damage President Trump. Over the last three-plus years, a number of members of the mainstream media have openly, and often proudly, declared their dislike or even disgust with the president. CNN, MSNBC, The Washington Post, and The New York Times have built entire business models around their unhinged anger.
For many on the left, the end has always justified the means. Would some in the media be willing to sacrifice the very welfare of their own families – and most assuredly the welfare of our nation – in an attempt to bring Trump down?
As crazy as that may sound, of course some of them would…and are. The proof is before our eyes multiple times per day.
The minds of some of these mainstream media executives, editors, and reporters have been so twisted and poisoned by their hatred of this president, that any means now justifies the end they seek. Even destroying a nation and the lives of millions of Americans.
One can only hope that the survival instinct of some of their more sane and responsible colleagues will kick-in, and the Trump-deranged, mentally-incapacitated executives, editors, and reporters will be dragged from the controls and isolated for the good of all.
While “If it Bleeds, it leads” and hate-driven politics are proven attention-getters and click producers, in this particular case, the unrelenting, purposeful, negative, and deliberately slanted news is not only feeding the panic sweeping our nation, but having a dangerous effect on the mental health of countless Americans.
That being the case, it would seem that the responsible heads of these major media-outlets might want to arrange an immediate teleconference to speak to the damage they are causing to our nation and our psyches, and collectively agree – for their own welfare and ours – that they need to dramatically dial down the “Sky is falling” stories, and ramp up the positive ones that are out there.
And out there they are.
Stop the negative. Stop the politics. Focus on hope.
Focus on the hundreds of infected cruise-line passengers now over the virus and home with their families; the now approximately hundred thousand worldwide who have recovered; the reasoned and balanced stories from medical professionals and experts who believe the severe effects and outcomes of this virus may be overestimated to greatly overestimated.
The point being, there are positive stories to be covered. They may not be nearly as profitable as the negative and political ones coming at us like an open trip valve at the Hoover Dam, but they are out there.
More importantly, those positive stories are just what the doctor ordered for a nation becoming more traumatized by the minute.
With regard to the deranged, anti-Trump media, there will always be time for their hatred. For now, all of the media must acknowledge that it spread, created, or exaggerated much of the panic now paralyzing America. It is now their duty to undue the harm they helped to unleash before it’s too late for us all.