Tell Me, "Why Should I Listen to You?"

"Why should I listen to you?" was a rhetorical question asked and

answered a few decades ago when I decided to stop watching the news.

Initially, my reason was a simple one. I lived alone with my first

Doberman during the time of a series of home invasions by a group of

men the local Houston news graphically called, the 'Kick-In Burglars."

The men kicked in the front doors of many homes in and around the

surrounding neighborhoods where I lived.

What value, I reasoned, was hearing about these frightening

burglaries? I had my dog, had my pepper spray next to my bed and my 38

on the floor under it- I had done all I could think of to protect

myself. Listening to the endless nightly reports simply scared me and

to no avail. Over the years, my reasons for opting out of the national

perhaps global obsession with the nightly news grew at an exponential

rate. Here's why.

    Most likely, I did not frame my rhetorical question exactly like

'Tell me why I should listen to you again?" but it was close.

Intuitively, I resisted the increasingly attractive faces with their

disturbingly fitting expressions to match whatever catastrophe being

reported.
    Over time, I learned to keep my mouth shut during conversations

with colleagues and friends rather than confessing that I did not

watch the news; explaining why was futile.
    And I thought frequently about Marshall McCluhan's prophetic

statement about the impact of television and its images upon culture

and society: 'The medium is the message.'
    During several times in which I held a position of authority, I

was exposed to several television hosts hoping to use the exposure for

public education only to learn that sound bytes are just that.
    Incrementally, within the last ten years, there are occasional

comments written by non-traditional types: Stating the obvious effects

of watching fear- filled graphic messages right before bed had

physical consequences like insomnia, high blood pressure was still

counter cultural.

Therefore, I was surprised, and pleased, to read Adriana Huffington's

post on LinkedIn the other day. Her message?

The news media is too far removed from main stream life. Despite the

fact that we are living in what is the 'safest period' of human

history, the print and visual news media are filled with violence,

murder and mayhem, locally and around the globe. Liberally quoting

from Steven Pinker's latest book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why

Violence Has Declined, Huffington observes that big city rates of

murder, rape and other felonies are significantly lower than in twenty

years yet our print and media news men and women defend their nightly

forecasts of fear and gloom.

Imagine a diet of news no longer grounded in fear?

Lin Wilder, DrPH is a former Hospital Director. She now writes full-

time.

Her web site is http://www.linwilder.com. Lin suggests that you check

her recently published novel at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/The-

Fragrance-Shed-Violet-Wilder/dp/1630632619

Contact Lin at lin@linwilder.com

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