Friday, 30 September 2022
Rain
Heavy rain in our bit of Derbyshire this afternoon and I had to pick up Granddaughter from school in the car as we live a few miles away. Short notice, but not a problem because we knew we might have to do it. As usual when raining, the road by the school was crammed with cars and Friday afternoon always seems to be worse anyway. But people cope, the traffic moves.
Life goes on, the school road becomes calm again because people do what they need to do. It's as if we live in two worlds. One world is daily life and the other is media world where panic, crisis, high drama and rampant hysteria pervade every nook and cranny. In this world, there are hardly any calm places where events are analysed by people who know how.
Some snippets of media world are relevant to real life or will be eventually, but it would be a major gain if the media were to focus their collective attention on the relevant bits, do some dispassionate analysis and drop the constant hysteria.
This afternoon it was raining – no problem. People have suitable clothing and umbrellas and if not, they don’t actually dissolve in a spot of rain, not even heavy rain. Yet in media world, even heavy rain may be reason to turn on the hysteria. It isn’t going to end well.
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4 comments:
It was pretty heavy here, then disappeared.
I was recently talking to a Canadian tourist who was on a walking holiday in our area. He said that one big change that he had noticed in the UK was that the BBC had changed from being objective and calm to being "more like a tabloid newspaper".
I wonder if a genuinely free market would change things. There are definitely some people who like and seek out stories with a strong emotional angle, which isn't a problem in itself. And some clearly like their news to be partisan, favouring their own ideas, teams, and allegiances. The problems arise because no providers actually admit to such things. They are all purveyors of "objective truth", even though they might be poles apart.
I too have noticed that the Apocalypse is just around the corner according to the media. I sometimes wonder how my mother managed to bring up her children during the Blitz and while my father was out in the middle of it as a fireman all night and then having to work normally during the day.Even when the power was out or the water was off,they still managed to lead a calm and stable life for us children.
James - that's climate change at both ends.
Sam - I see the BBC as tabloid too. Their online content makes it pretty clear. I suppose providers can't admit to providing drama and bias. They make it obvious enough, but that too is part of what they are selling.
John - I often refer back to that generation because they coped. It's an uncomfortable idea, but it may be that we need life to be harder such that coping at an individual level becomes more necessary.
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