One of the blessings about not soaking up news via the radio or television is that in that silence, there is a merciful reprieve from the frenzy to sell me something.
I believe it is imperative to know, truly, as one know's one's own meaty bits, why broadcasting exists. Every single time a broadcasting device is turned on, its reason for being is to sell you something. Soup, soap, hope or an agenda, be assured that the people behind that broadcast are very clearly and methodically trying to sell you a bill of goods.
Examine the very word "broadcast". One way to interpret this word is to break it down into its component parts: "to cast" and "broadly". It is a broad net, indeed, that the media empires are casting. They are hoping that through sensationalism, drama or the undeniable appeal of "Fat People Crying", you will be so compelled to sit, riveted, to the small screen, that they will be able to insert their message into your brain. It is that message, for whatever product they are shilling, that is the real exchange.
This is not, friends and neighbors, limited to attempts to get you to purchase a boxy car driven by hamsters, a car that will make you so terminally hip that you will wonder how you lived without it. No, it is not just products that are poised in the chute, waiting for the next opening in your consumer queue. There are agendas to be marketed, outlooks and beliefs to be consumed. Even the esteemed purveyors of culture at PBS and NPR, no matter how much I love them, are in the selling game. Faux News and CNN are selling the fear. NPR and PBS are selling the antidote. But make no mistake, they are both selling.
This frenzy of commerce does not end with products or prevailing attitudes. Particularly during the newscasts, where the perceived viewing audience is of a certain age, the emphasis is on selling health and robust sex at later and later stages of life. This medication makes you micturate long and well while that pill will enable you to sit next to a gorgeous partner, each of you in your separate bathtubs. It is my guess separate bathtubs overlooking a beautiful lake are a powerful sexual allusion but I have to admit the significance of the thing plumb evades me.
When the switch is flipped or the dial is turned, the media springs forth to soothe, to entertain, to enlighten and inform. Smoke and mirrors, behind which are the inevitable sellers, probing, searching for an opening. They are fabricating the approach, the con that will bring you to open your wallet or pocketbook without even knowing that you are doing it. Later you will notice that you simply must have this or that because without it your life is a sere desert.
And flaccid as well.
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