12 February 2006
11. Mass Media-Induced Weather Hysteria
People rising from their slumber yesterday morning in New England in hopes of having their usual relaxing Sunday were quickly disabused of the notion. Those of us hoping to make a nice omelette or some pancakes and bacon and then lollygag on the sofa and watch the Sunday morning talk shows were not to be obliged these pleasures.
We were instead to be subjected to a nearly five-hour repetitive, totally uninformative news broadcast on at least six channels.
The so-called "Blizzard of 2006" was hardly a blizzard, and actually only netted us about a foot of snow. A foot is a fair amount, but not crippling by any means. Not one of the blizzard pre-requisites was met yesterday, as the newspeople themselves informed us at the time. Then all of a sudden, in a sudden spasm of Orwellian mind control, all the headlines and leads in the news today are trumpeting the Blizzard of 2006.
The media simply cannot stand to not have a brand name to attach to a news event of this kind so they can force its relevance, real or imagined, on us. Even the local meteorologist has become just another product. Channel 4 in our area has dubbed its employees covering the storm the First Alert Xtreme[sic] Team.
Here is the gist of their "coverage:" interminable vignettes of miserable shivering TV reporters standing in the streets of various communities informing viewers that it was snowing, that it was windy, that there had been an invention in recent times called the snow plow, which was used to remove snow from roads, because snowy roads make for unsafe driving, that standing outside for hours during a snowstorm made one cold, that people do not want snow on their driveways, and so use shovels to remove it, and, that it would eventually stop snowing. Their reportage was accompanied by elaborate comparative graphics measuring this event against the fury of the storms of yesteryear. The reporter and anchor, using phony camaraderie and banter, would then attempt to shoehorn the current storm into the pantheon of the worst snow disasters of all time.
And, invariably, on every channel, the reporter would then stick a farcically small pre-schooler-sized ruler into the snow to show how much had accumulated since s/he last performed this experiment four minutes ago. Since the rulers were about six inches long, they promptly disappeared into the snow. Presto: "Look at all this snow, Bob!"
The reporters would also all manage to sneak in some commentary about how unfortunate their lot in life had become, and how they would much prefer to be at home on the sofa watching the Sunday morning talk shows. But their intrepid nature is the stuff of legend and makes it possible for the network to bring viewers such compelling coverage of this important event that we could all observe outside our windows.
We defy these Networks to supply us with statistics showing that people prefer to watch nonstop coverage of a snowstorm in New England instead of CBS Sunday Morning or Meet the Press. Or the Olympics. Or infomercials, for the Love of Pete. And we want cold, hard, empirical data that has not been massaged by their insidious public relations apparatus. New Englanders have seen storms like this 36 times in our lives.
Although perhaps it was not such a bad thing to turn the tv off and spend some quality time with the family, or read a book. Or go outside and shovel.
We were instead to be subjected to a nearly five-hour repetitive, totally uninformative news broadcast on at least six channels.
The so-called "Blizzard of 2006" was hardly a blizzard, and actually only netted us about a foot of snow. A foot is a fair amount, but not crippling by any means. Not one of the blizzard pre-requisites was met yesterday, as the newspeople themselves informed us at the time. Then all of a sudden, in a sudden spasm of Orwellian mind control, all the headlines and leads in the news today are trumpeting the Blizzard of 2006.
The media simply cannot stand to not have a brand name to attach to a news event of this kind so they can force its relevance, real or imagined, on us. Even the local meteorologist has become just another product. Channel 4 in our area has dubbed its employees covering the storm the First Alert Xtreme[sic] Team.
Here is the gist of their "coverage:" interminable vignettes of miserable shivering TV reporters standing in the streets of various communities informing viewers that it was snowing, that it was windy, that there had been an invention in recent times called the snow plow, which was used to remove snow from roads, because snowy roads make for unsafe driving, that standing outside for hours during a snowstorm made one cold, that people do not want snow on their driveways, and so use shovels to remove it, and, that it would eventually stop snowing. Their reportage was accompanied by elaborate comparative graphics measuring this event against the fury of the storms of yesteryear. The reporter and anchor, using phony camaraderie and banter, would then attempt to shoehorn the current storm into the pantheon of the worst snow disasters of all time.
And, invariably, on every channel, the reporter would then stick a farcically small pre-schooler-sized ruler into the snow to show how much had accumulated since s/he last performed this experiment four minutes ago. Since the rulers were about six inches long, they promptly disappeared into the snow. Presto: "Look at all this snow, Bob!"
The reporters would also all manage to sneak in some commentary about how unfortunate their lot in life had become, and how they would much prefer to be at home on the sofa watching the Sunday morning talk shows. But their intrepid nature is the stuff of legend and makes it possible for the network to bring viewers such compelling coverage of this important event that we could all observe outside our windows.
We defy these Networks to supply us with statistics showing that people prefer to watch nonstop coverage of a snowstorm in New England instead of CBS Sunday Morning or Meet the Press. Or the Olympics. Or infomercials, for the Love of Pete. And we want cold, hard, empirical data that has not been massaged by their insidious public relations apparatus. New Englanders have seen storms like this 36 times in our lives.
Although perhaps it was not such a bad thing to turn the tv off and spend some quality time with the family, or read a book. Or go outside and shovel.
06 February 2006
10. Speaker-Phone
Occasionally, in the evolution of our human machinery, there arise devices that rear up against us and make our living experience a misery. We are supposed to be enriched by these clever inventions--particularly in our work-a-day lives--but sometimes the signal gets lost on the wrong track when the lights are on but nobody is home.
Have we not all been subjected to the speaker-phone's cacophonous chorus and plaintive beeps and boops? And have we not all been rung up by a colleague only to answer and then hear his distorted and garbled voice shouting back at us through the ear-piece, as if it were trapped inside the Phantom Zone flying through space like the three villains in Superman II? And then, the indignity, to hear his desk chair squeaking, or birds peeping in the oak tree outside his office window, while trying to decipher his squawking treatise on synergistic alliances, or work-flow dimension, or some such. All the while knowing that any number of unknown people are listening to and evaluating this conversation. "Do you mind if I put you on the speaker-phone?" Of course we mind--everybody minds--we all hate it.
We are happy to report that it is not just us who revile the use of this insidious device. It is also officially rude.
Mr. Post ought to know. His great-grandmother wrote the book on manners that he revised, expanded, and adapted for seminars.
We believe the Post family should run further afield, and amend their work on speaker-phone rudeness to include the use of its twisted cousin, the walkie-talkie-cellphone, or, more aptly, the portable speaker-phone.
Both are the impedimenta of a lazy, inconsiderate mind, easily amused by simple technological novelty. Because, in what universe is it sensible to use a telephone to talk to someone on a two-way radio basis? The answer is: possibly in the universe of law enforcement or construction. It is absolutely not in the universe of riding on the subway and telling someone about how you got a parking ticket because you did not see the handicapped parking sign. It is a telephone. Use it as such. Who do you imagine yourself to be, the captain of a mortar emplacement, radioing in firing coordinates?
Devices like speaker-phones and walkie-talkie-cellphones are but de-personalizing tools of convenience. They deaden users to their surroundings and consign the idea of a well-mannered common experience to oblivion. To the Phantom Zone.
Have we not all been subjected to the speaker-phone's cacophonous chorus and plaintive beeps and boops? And have we not all been rung up by a colleague only to answer and then hear his distorted and garbled voice shouting back at us through the ear-piece, as if it were trapped inside the Phantom Zone flying through space like the three villains in Superman II? And then, the indignity, to hear his desk chair squeaking, or birds peeping in the oak tree outside his office window, while trying to decipher his squawking treatise on synergistic alliances, or work-flow dimension, or some such. All the while knowing that any number of unknown people are listening to and evaluating this conversation. "Do you mind if I put you on the speaker-phone?" Of course we mind--everybody minds--we all hate it.
We are happy to report that it is not just us who revile the use of this insidious device. It is also officially rude.
Mr. Post ought to know. His great-grandmother wrote the book on manners that he revised, expanded, and adapted for seminars.
We believe the Post family should run further afield, and amend their work on speaker-phone rudeness to include the use of its twisted cousin, the walkie-talkie-cellphone, or, more aptly, the portable speaker-phone.
Both are the impedimenta of a lazy, inconsiderate mind, easily amused by simple technological novelty. Because, in what universe is it sensible to use a telephone to talk to someone on a two-way radio basis? The answer is: possibly in the universe of law enforcement or construction. It is absolutely not in the universe of riding on the subway and telling someone about how you got a parking ticket because you did not see the handicapped parking sign. It is a telephone. Use it as such. Who do you imagine yourself to be, the captain of a mortar emplacement, radioing in firing coordinates?
Devices like speaker-phones and walkie-talkie-cellphones are but de-personalizing tools of convenience. They deaden users to their surroundings and consign the idea of a well-mannered common experience to oblivion. To the Phantom Zone.
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