Dramatic? or Traumatic? The 411 on The News Today

The news is almost frightening to us today, but why? Clearly we are not being well informed. It is like the news reporters are leaving out a few facts that could make us freak out less. Who knows if the information we are actually hearing is true! The news is given off like some kind of reality television show or a 21st century soap opera that goes way too overboard for us to understand what is real and what is not. The purpose of this paper will examine what exactly we are watching when the news is on television and why exactly are we interested in watching the news reporters report only on negative subjects.

When it comes to reporting the news, the news channels are more like an entertainment station that are only there to entertain the people whether it be for good or bad. For some people coming home after a long day of work to watch the 6:00 news does not always seem so pleasing. Why you ask? Well the news is by far extremely negative! It is rare to hear about good things happening in the world. All we ever hear is about the negative things that happen. Its just like a comment that Deepak Chopra made

“The current perception I get from the evening news is that the world is dominated by human failure, crime, catastrophe, corruption, and tragedy. We are all tuning in to see how the human mind is evolving, but the media keeps hammering home the opposite, that the human mind is mired in darkness and folly”.

The thing is we are not thinking: why am I watching this? We literally just sit there and listen to two people on the television speaking their biased opinions about something we might not even care about or have any knowledge of, but yet we still listen, and yes it is true, they use this way of getting us interested in what they have to say. Somehow we believe it because the mystery of the stories fascinates us and we want to hear more about it. However this is not always a good thing. We can actually hear too much and some of us react and panic because they can’t get over their anxiety about certain things, while others ignore it and move on

People really do want to hear the negative things that happen around the world because they would literally be bored with life if all they heard was how great life is and that everything is perfect. It’s also that some people don’t find it entertaining to hear about the good things in the world. They may feel better, but is it really that entertaining? Not really. The truth is there really isn’t anything positive to put on the news that people will be entertained by. Looking at it from another point of view…The problem is with negative news taking over the news stations, the news is now over whelming and stressful. There are some people who have so much anxiety that when they come home after a tiring day they don’t want to hear about the stuff happening in the world. Like Eckhart Tolle said

"Your mind is an instrument, a tool. It is there to be used for a specific task, and when the task is completed, you lay it down. As it is, I would say about 80 to 90 percent of most people's thinking is not only repetitive and useless, but because of its dysfunctional and often negative nature, much of it is also harmful. Observe your mind and you will find this to be true. It causes a serious leakage of vital energy“.

We can easily wonder why people have so much anxiety after watching the news. It’s because people don’t really think about what they are watching and make any sense of any of it. Think about it… how could they? No one can ever be sure how much truth is said on the news. News reporters tend to have very biased opinions based on their beliefs. So really if you think about it, they may not actually be reporting any news but be reporting a bunch of nonsense because they have this idea that were stupid and we won’t notice. Also that they report what they feel like reporting( talk about lazy eh?). They take bits and pieces of stories and put it together and make it into something else, knowing that it may not be the complete truth.

Social media all together is adding to some of the problems with people and there anxiety, so let’s be nice and give social networks, television shows and magazines some credit for the damage they are causing. Come on it’s only fair right? From the article “Social Media creates Anxiety Says TWU” written by Erin Mussolum who based his research done by Robert Deode a professor at Trinity Western University.

Social media has changed the way we live our lives. Our lives are largely focused on Facebook or Myspace, television and anything we have access to on the internet. These contribute to the anxiety that we suffer with. What Robert Deode did was absolutely amazing. I don’t think anyone in this entire country would have done what he did. He set a test for his students to go on a social media fast for three months. Only the strong were estimated to be the ones who succeed. As mentioned before social media’s today have made people today very lazy and nervous as hell. We are cooped up in our homes fooling around on the internet posting pictures and comments, playing video games, watching non sense news channels or watching ridiculous television shows. Now not all of it is bad, however to a certain extent it is making us lazy and I don’t think we are keeping track of what we watch and realize how much it consumes all of our free time. This in the end leaves us with nothing but anxiety. We don’t have time to go and get anything done or really just go on with our lives. Abstinence from media will leave people with less anxiety. With television and social networks it looks like they are trying to promote panic and awareness. At the end of all of this its distracting us from our own reality because we are unable to face it. So cheers to television , social networks or anything other mediums we now can pay more attention to you and ignore our own lives! Much thanks!

To make things worse were given the idea that anything that happens will be reported on the news because the people out there should know what is happening. Honestly that js not the case at all. Something REALLY bad has to happen in order for the news channels to rush to the scene and report what has just happened. Only when something like that happens do journalists or news reporters really get up and do their jobs. The rest of the time there not doing anything. From the book

"Responding to Crisis: a Rhetorical Approach to Crisis Communication"

By Dan Pyle Millar and Robert Lawrence Heath make a point on page 289 of the book that something like this is not something that should happen. Reporters have the freedom to report on what they want but what if they report on matters that are not important? The only way for them to be important if there is some type of celebrity or famous person involved in or with the story. Only desperate television shows go for the stories that other news stations refuse to report on, because really they do not take some matters seriously when it comes to informing the world what is going on locally or world wide. They all want the big stuff, never the little. They are missing out on the little things because it is the little things that happen that make the world what it is today. Good or bad the little things always go unnoticed. With the big important stories getting noticed there is more room for drama. New reporters can take a big stories and make it sound worse then it actually is to freak out the viewers about so many tragedies that are happening in the world today. Again are you really thinking about what could actually be happening and not always believing what you see? There is such a thing as editing. News stations do edit their footage so that they can make the story sound more interesting and more entertaining then it actually is and make it this whole “end of the world’ type of thing. Ridiculous, right? As Carlos Castaneda said

“The trick is what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same”.

Even if the media tries as hard as they can they can not control the way we react to the news all the time. It is only a matter of us learning how to process the information that they gives and make sense of it. So really we should try to beat them andnot react the way they want us to because we are only hurting ourselves when we believe every single thing the news reporters tell us. There is more to life then what we see and hear on the television. The real stories are out there we just don’t seem them. The news reporters jobs are for finding them, but the viewers will never know how much of the stories they tell are actually all true.

There is always some exaggerations to the stories. It can not be avoided. Even if we went on strike and proved to them how horrible they do their jobs there really would not be a way to change it. That is the way it is done. It may not be intentional but the way they report the news make the viewers care more about what is on the news then what actually happens in their own lives or what revolves around them.

The dramatic news that we see on television feels more like an escape from the viewers life then a actual reality check. The news should inform us on what is happening to world when we are sitting in our homes enjoying the good life, but the news isn’t like that. The news feels more like a scripted reality television show with paid actors. It’s not real, its all made up. Actually it is confusing to know what is real and what is not. It is unknown, it is a mystery.

To end all of this an interesting subject to think about is how local television is needing more support from people today because they are loosing their viewers. This is actually turning into a serious matter because is local television goes out of business then world wide news will take over and they will literally control everything that goes on and what they think it important to report on. They can not do that. They are going to feel the people up with all their propaganda and we are going to be forced to listen to it and one day deal with the fact the media is taking over our world. We the people will not have a say on what we think is important. Our opinions will not matter.

So when you turn on the television to watch the news remember to reflect on what was written in this essay because what could you lose? The media do not look as innocent as you may think.

References:

Charlie Brooker's NewsWipe. 26 Mar. 2009. YouTube. Web. 7 Dec. 2009.
watch?v=dm4GiyyVKQQ>.

Huxman, Susan Schultz. "Exidencies,Explanations and Executions: Toward a Dynamic Theory Of The
Crisis Communication Genre." Responding To Crisis: A Rhetorical Approach to Crisis
Communication. Ed. Dan Pyle Millar and Robert Lawrence Heath. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 289-290.
Google Books. Web. 7 Dec. 2009.
books?id=AKslPi0CV4cC&pg=RA1-PA289&lpg=RA1-PA289&dq=news+stations+approach+to+crisis&source=bl&ots=zq
JRURCZZt&sig=6E8bjWXTUyeHSAa06M8v78sooi8&hl=en&ei=3pcCS7H3M8yinQfBmb10&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&
resnum=5&ved=0CBAQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=&f=false>.

Mussolum, Erin. "Social Media creates anxiety says TWU professor." Trinity Western University. N.p.,
22 July 2009. Web. 7 Dec. 2009.
the-dangers-of-social-media.html>.

"Negatuve Quotes." Woopido Quotations. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Dec. 2009.
business_quotes/negative-quotes.htm>. The current perception I get from the evening news is

that the world is dominated by human failure, crime, catastrophe, corruption, and tragedy. We

are all tuning in to see how the human mind is evolving, but the media keeps hammering home the

opposite, that the human mind is mired in darkness and folly.

Deepak Chopra

creation of a tool

The hardest part of the this is project was to sit down and come up with an idea the could possibly help with out with my daily hassles. After thinking for what seemed like hours and listening to my cat whine and whine and whine. The idea hit me like a rock! I came up with the idea to create an automatic pet food dispenser.
My cat is very stubborn, and is always hungry, but were trying to put her on a diet. If we don't feed her she will whine and whine until she gets her way. So my idea is to create a pet food dispenser that is activated by a motion sensor. When my cat approaches her food dish the food will descend down a large tube and into her bowl. This will not happen every time she goes to eat. The bowl will be filled 3 times a day max and if her bowl is empty or getting there then the food dispenser will release a small amount of food.

Day One:
Today the drawings were made on what the food dispenser should resemble. As I was drawing some concerns made me re-think my design. I want this invention to be mess proof and a money saver. With this I created a rectangular dish with a circular food dish inside. If the cat makes any mess the food will fall into the rectangle and will be sucked up by a tube and sent back to where the food is stored. No mess, no waste.
Things seem to be progressing well but I have approached the main problem of my project. I can't build something for my life. I know nothing about wires, motors or anything related to building my invention. However i won't let that stop my from this idea. So i decided to create some valid blue prints of the invention. Everything from size, color and how it will work.
The more I think about this the more excited I get. Today was based simply on brainstorming what i want it to do and how it will look. However I ended up doing more. I began thinking about things that could set me back and that consider thinking about.

Size- Is it bulky?
Price- Could this possibly be expensive?
Design- Can other looks be created to match every house hold? Is the design original?
Food- Will it carry all types of food? Will the food be fresh?

Some of these after much thought will eventually be solved, but right now it's only the beginning.

vibrobot

Our first attempt(myself and Julien)at our Vibrobot was a FAIL, after getting extremely distracted and trying to create a head messager using vibrations. It was clear to us that this idea had no connection to what we really were supposed to do. That's when we came across a propeller and an elastic band. This might have happened randomly but we created a kind of sling shot thing. We were inspired and had confidence that we could create the GREATEST INVENTION OF ALL...or at least try.
Second fail of the day, what can i say I'm no good with machines. I thought maybe i could be inspired if I wrapped wire around my head like a head band and brainstormed ideas(yeah that didn't really work), my partner Julien however is the creative one over here.
We have decided to base our vibrobot on a coat hanger and from that we will used the body structure of it and create something that moves.
After many attempty at creating something out of nothing we have successfully made a cloths hanger in to move using vibrations. We altered the the body a bit and gave it legs and attached our motor and battery on each side of the body. I think the pictures will make more sense then I am right now. It's possible that I'm really excited that we created something.
To conclude, I guess it was a good idea that we joked around for the beginning of this project because that was what allowed us to come up with this interesting looking vibrobot.