Cynical Nation

From watching the news channels Saturday morning, it would be easy to conclude that all of New Jersey was under seven feet of water. (By the way, check out this priceless clip if you haven't already.)

My wife and I were watching from Newark airport, minutes before our plane was to take off from a perfectly dry tarmac. Granted, after eight straight days of rain, we were sodden, but not flooded. In fact, no one I know was flooded.

I'm quite certain there were indeed instances of flooding in some parts of the state, but there is also an undeniable attempt on the part of the MSM to sensationalize rather than report accurately. It's just like the whole "New Orleans has descended into barbarism!!!" phenomenon. Christ, wasn't the situation bad enough without having to embellish it with tales of rampant rapes and wanton cannibalism?

It's no wonder that so few people trust mainstream news sources these days. But what I find interesting is how many people I know believe that our news media serves us nothing but sunshine and rosy scenarios. On the contrary, the news media endeavors to portray everything as as big a disaster as possible.

Dramatic content gets ratings, so I guess they're giving us what we want. Then after an hour of "news" about widespread baby-raping and corpse-eating, and info-babes paddling by in ankle-deep water, we'll be treated to an exposé about how drinking coffee from a styrofoam cup can kill you, or some damn thing. Welcome to television news in the 21st century.