A ‘reliable’ source has announced that it has learned that the end of the world will take place in early April, 2014. Details were unavailable which led to further skepticism since the announced date was April 1st. Stay tuned for late breaking news coming up after an important announcement.
Actually the headline was deliberately and misleadingly false; there was no actual report of the approach of the ‘rapture’ which besides would contradict the Bible’s statement on the event in Matthew 24:36. But there was a method in this headline madness since this column’s real intent deals with the alarming ways some news items are presented on television. Take for instance the news of the ongoing saga of the doomed flight of Malaysia MH370.
It is understandable that any new item should be presented in as interesting, and factual way as possible, and one important approach is to get the attention of the readers with a headline that draws their curiosity. For the past few weeks, the television channels have been filled with countless stories of the missing airliner and in some cases with a theatrical flair. But there is a problem with an overabundance of the use of this reportorial technique. How many times can the words ALERT! and BREAKING NEWS! appear before they become inconsequential and simply lose their effectiveness? It ultimately comes off as predictably empty even seemingly untrue. Do you remember reading the folk tale fable “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” as a child which made this point?
Recall that a shepherd boy decides that he wants to have some fun with his neighbors and attempts to trick them into believing that a wolf is attacking their sheep even though it is not true. When they come to the rescue, his trickery brings him a laugh but creates a sense of betrayal from the villagers. Later the boy is faced with a real situation where there is an actual wolf attack, and he calls for help, in vain. His neighbors do not believe his call of alarm and ignore his desperate cry. He has lost something critical: credibility..
This truism applies to the fabricated headline of this column (made for a reason) and the repeated use of the dramatic exclamatory MH370 TV headlines used more for effect than for actuality. Too much of a good thing can be bad as the saying goes meaning in this case too much excitable shouting via a headline which can soon cause mental indifference thereby making this reporting technique lose its effectiveness… that is, there is no “wolf” present, a fact that is soon obvious to the reader.
Fool me once shame of you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
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Bill Lee, PO Box 128,
Hamer, SC 29547
