Do you watch or listen to the news and feel your blood begin to boil? Does it piss you off so much that you begin to “hate” the other side of politics? You may be subjecting yourself to “alarmist crap”.

After my post yesterday about marketing and the news, I had a response from someone who called Fox News alarmist crap. I don't watch Fox News, but a light bulb went off in my head.

A year or two ago, I listened to Democracy Now. It is a free podcast that offered fairly liberal news. Every time I listened to the show, my blood began to boil. I was super energized saying, “How the [bleep] can they let that happen! That's absurd!” I was incensed about… even the smallest, most insignificant political things.

Finally, I realized that Democracy Now was just “alarmist crap.” It didn't report the news. It was designed to get you pissed off and active with the news.

When I write it that way, I think, that's not too bad a goal. People need to get involved in their governments. But ultimately, it was the way it made me feel. I prefer my news to be as unbiased as possible. Obviously, bias is normal, but I don't want my news blatantly politicized. Then it is Not News. It is propaganda.

“Propaganda is neutrally defined as a systematic form of purposeful persuasion that attempts to influence the emotions, attitudes, opinions, and actions of specified target audiences for ideological, political or commercial purposes through the controlled transmission of one-sided messages (which may or may not be factual) via mass and direct media channels. A propaganda organization employs propagandists who engage in propagandism—the applied creation and distribution of such forms of persuasion.”
Richard Alan Nelson, A Chronology and Glossary of Propaganda in the United States, 1996

So when my friend described Fox News as “alarmist crap”. I understood. Fox News runs their company much like Democracy Now. It's a way to persuade people by exaggerating the events and pass them off as “news”… truthful. But propaganda, by it's nature is designed to manipulate.

So if you are watching or listening to the news and your blood begins to boil. Take a moment. Breathe. Then change the station or stop listening to the podcast.

Do you truly want to be manipulated by propaganda?

And if you “don't mind”, remember that propaganda took on a negative meaning in the 20th century with the creation of the Nazi Party.

(Disclaimer: This blog is propaganda against propagandist media.)