Is the world exploding?

Chicken Little had nothing on the modern media, and not just the clickbait brigade! (Although all the oldline, mainstream media and much of the new and supposedly independent media seem to have adopted that modus operandi.)

Consider:

Newsweek: Lake Mead’s water level is falling – we’re all gonna die of thirst

The Irish News (US): More than 40 still stranded a day after fatal cable car accident in Turkey – they’re all gonna die of thirst and starvation (and panic)

News Nation: DeSantis signs bill banning heat protection laws for outdoor workers – they’re all gonna dies of heat stroke and heat exhaustion

The Center Square: Supreme Court unanimously rules against exorbitant government fees – All them guvmint buro-rats all gonna quit or die ’cause they won’t get paid

Essa News: Hezbollah’s formidable show of force. Missiles rain on Israel. And BBC: Iran launches drones at Israel in retaliatory attack – All those Israelis gonna die – or immigate to the States (NYC and Florida and the Catskills, no doubt)

AFP: It’s inflation, stupid: Biden faces renewed election threat – Trump’s gonna win and become a military dictator, all the women will die (no abortions), all the Hollywood and NYC and Nashville libs gonna get sent to Gitmo or reeducation camps. And democracy is gonna die!

Fox News: China is a threat to peace worldwide – We all gonna die or get turned into Solyent Green to feed hungry Chinese – after they sink every American, Brit, Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, Filipino, Vietnamese and Indonesian warship of course

Live Science: Nuclear Fusion Reactor could be here as soon as 2025: “cleaner energy” – We all gonna die because atomic energy killed millions of people in Japan in 1945 and we all know fusion bombs are much more powerful than mere fission bombs

These of course are just a few of the scary headlines that we hear on the radio, see on TV or Internet News, and get plastered on X, Facebook, and all the other social media.

Why? Why exaggerate about things? Why write fiery headlines that are not even backed up by the tiny handful of truth found in the article. If that?

Well, it sells ads – clicks, at least. Just like newspapers used to do – in the days when metropolitan dailies competed between each other and paid newsboys a pittance to hawk their papers. Long before the time when the typical smaller daily newspaper serves up equal parts of celebrity gossip, sports scores and gossip, and “good living” gossip. And a series of clickbait headlines.

But of course, there is more: these headlines sell FEAR. Fear about tomorrow. Fear about your neighbor. Fear about your health (and about Big Medicine and Big Pharma, all at the same time). Fear about your children. Fear about disease, about war, about famine.

It is all about spin – all about getting you and me to waste money, to waste time and effort preparing for dealing with fear. But of course, only in the way the media and their partners want you to prepare and deal with it.

So, to paraphrase a popular saying. Keep calm. Take a deep breath. Be prepared, of course. But make sure that you see through the fearmongering. And don’t buy into the solution that ultimately all of these media (even the independent alternative press) pushes: No man (or woman) on a white horse is riding to our rescue. We need to stand on our own two feet and let the fears and troubles of today be enough for the day.

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