The mystery of Malaysia’s flight 370 has become the latest tool of corporate media manipulation and over saturation. Instead of reporting on facts and investigations, we get a plethora of speculation, rumor and frankly, fear mongering. Why? The answer is obvious: ratings. Most cable news networks have received a doubling of their regular ratings. In the old days, newscasts reported on what happened. or occasionally why. Today, they are so hungry for ratings that they project pre-news—theories, rumors, fears and maybes—all to use emotions to stick eyeballs to their channel for days.
What we learn is that they know nothing, and neither do their so called experts. If they know nothing, they should say nothing. But no, we get breaking news, all day long, that isn’t breaking into anything, certainly not news. So frantic families tune in hours at a stretch for nothing substantive or truly meaningful. We do better tuning into static. But the beast must be fed. The beast must eat, so it dines on hope, emotions, fear, and loss, camouflaged as news. News means new information; of that they have precious little to give. From in prison nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
