With Irene downgraded to a tropical storm, it is clear that this
weather event has become another example of America's media hyping every
potential crisis into a full-blown calamity before the fact.
Observing such was George Will on ABC's "This Week" Sunday who told his
fellow panelists, "Whatever else you want to say about journalism, it
shouldn’t subtract from the nation’s understanding and it certainly
shouldn’t contribute to the manufacture of synthetic hysteria that is so
much a part of modern life" (video follows with transcript and
commentary):
JAKE TAPPER, HOST: George, you think we’re making too big a deal of all this.
GEORGE WILL: I have a home on South Carolina’s Atlantic Coast. I know
that the Atlantic Ocean generates hurricanes, and they can be dangerous
and unpredictable. That said, this too must be said: Florence
Nightingale said, “Whatever else you can say about hospitals, they
shouldn’t make their patients sicker.” And whatever else you want to say
about journalism, it shouldn’t subtract from the nation’s understanding
and it certainly shouldn’t contribute to the manufacture of synthetic
hysteria that is so much a part of modern life. And I think we may have
done so with regard to this tropical storm as it now seems to be.
When you think about the unnecessary panic and fear ginned up by the
media over what indeed turned into a tropical storm before it hit
Manhattan, one has to wonder how much time and money was wasted in
preparing for the hyped worst case scenario that fortunately never
transpired.
Continues...
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