Media Games

Thursday, November 04/16

So on my 40+ minute drive to work this past week I've had lots of time to think about things, sometimes this is good thing and sometimes it's not so good, and I started thinking back about some of the major stories we've been flooded with over the past year or so.

Do any of these rings a bell?

Ebola outbreak in West Africa sees first major cases in America. There was some panic but not as much as could have been expected given some of the reporting that was going on around this story.

Greece close to defaulting on national debt. I remember reading countless stories about how the Greek people were not going to let the government cut pensions or try and enforce the tax code as the rest of Europe was demanding they do if Greece expected to receiver any more funding. Seem to remember Germany being painted as the bad guys in this scenario given how they control the purse strings in the European Common Market.

China builds islands in the South China Sea and declares a 20o mile sea zone radius that will choke off trade. America and Japan both tested the no fly zone and found no response forthcoming but the region was up in arms over this blatant act of militarism by China.

Syrian refugees flood the soft underbelly of Europe seeking to reach Germany and the rest of Northern Europe. Canada responded to the crises by allowing 25,000 refugees into the country under one of the first acts initiated by the Justin Trudeau government. It was a fly by your seats response by our JT and probably not his last. Oh lucky us.

Britain votes to leave the European Common Market or the Brexit as the pundits have come to call it.

So here are 5 major events that captivated the wold for a few brief moments in time and than faded back into obscurity.

So what does that tell us about our ability to remain focused on an event? I mean none of these issues have been solved in the least and yet we never hear about them anymore.

Are we as a society incapable of staying tuned to something for longer than a week?

I'd like to think we can but evidence suggests otherwise. Now the wait begins for the next story or issue the media can latch onto and inundate us about.

My name is Marcus and sometimes I scratch my head at the world and welcome the voices in my head :-)