Rou

Sometimes I get really sick of the news media. In general, their coverage of topics is spotty and misinformed. But my special hatred is the “It's deadly, it's in your house, and it wants to kill your children, more at 11” bullshit. Here’s a hint for those out there. If a reporter says something is going to be the end of the world as you know it, you should probably get a second opinion.

Today’s rant is the direct result of the ABC News show Primetime. They aired a segment on the avian flu. Now, don’t get me wrong. Avian flu is a very dangerous thing and something scientists continue to be concerned about. My problem is with the manner in which the segment and related article were handled.

It outlined the problem, told everyone that there was no cure or effective treatment, that it was very contagious, and could lead to the quarantine of entire districts of cities. It made some claims that the epidemic was imminent and could hit as soon as this winter. Then they throw out numbers like 200k people dead inside a few months. Then it says the US is totally unprepared, and more or less leaves the viewer with that. Basically, "We're all going to die, so umm... yeah. Thanks for watching."

First off, most of the facts stated there are on the sunny side of bullshit. Yes avian flu is dangerous, but we really don’t know a lot about it yet. We barely know how contagious it is, we don’t really know how to treat it, and we have no idea when it is expected to mutate into a form that can pass from human to human. But if you watched this segment, you’d be ready to double check your will tomorrow.

Sensationalistic fear mongering for ratings. Truly sickening.

While I’m on the topic of the news, I want to throw a side rant in here. Yahoo news has recently expanded their news feeds to include articles from the Weekly World News. For those of you unfamiliar, it’s one of those tabloid type papers that publish stories about batboy and alien babies. A few days ago, I stumbled across an article on Yahoo that told about a huge conspiracy to cover up the fact that a “Planet Dissolving Dust Cloud” will destroy the Earth in 2014. I shit you not. I couldn’t make that up to save my life. Naturally, I was confused. How could such totally BS be posted up on Yahoo News? Then I discovered the WWN source. Why on earth would any respectable news agency take up feeds from that place? It’s just going to confuse the ignorant masses. Most of them know a tabloid is bullshit. When they see it on Yahoo, it’s just going to confuse them.

Fuck the media. I remind you, these are the same dumbass fuckers who aren’t bright enough to come inside to get out of the hurricane force winds. Why do we trust them to inform the nation again?