The Marketing of Fear

I was watching the news on NBC last night and one of their stories was about some house fire that was being attributed to "eco-terrorists". The paranoid part of me would like to say this was just another attempt by the current administration to promote bad environmental policies by playing the terrorist card but unfortunately it is not that simple. The fact is that nearly every story NBC presented last night involved some form of fear mongering, or perhaps I should say fear "marketing". The story that followed was about obesity issues (kids not getting enough breakfast which lead to increased obesity) and the one after that was some fear generating story about the recession.

The whole experience got me thinking about what is the difference between the marketing of fear and just reporting on the news, which is after all the job of any news organization. In thinking about it I tried to contrast the mainstream NBC news (CBS and ABC would be no better) and that of the other news program I watch, the PBS News with Jim Lehrer. My conclusion is that it all comes down to time. In the half hour mainstream news each story last between 30 seconds and two minutes because when you take away the commercials the actual news time is only 15 minutes. In a couple of minutes it is only possible to roughly outline problems. There is never enough time to go into the complete details behind a problem much less to discuss possible solutions.

Compare this to the stories on the PBS news. Besides an initial news summary that last usually 3-4 minutes, the rest of the 60 minute broadcast is devoted to covering three or four stories in depth. Because there are few if any commercials each story gets abut 8-10 minutes of coverage. This usually allows enough time to not only present the problem being discussed but time to explore potential solutions that people are currently being explored.

I am always struck by how different the PBS news feels than the conventional news. The conventional news leaves me feeling distraught and worried. I know there is a problem out there but I don't have enough details to analyze it so it sits there like some cloud of doom, amorphous but scary. Since no solutions are ever discussed one gets a sense of hopelessness and despair.

On the other hand on the PBS news I am presented with the same problems but I am given a much better explanation about the details behind the problem. This allows me to engage my intellect and figure out where in the grand scheme of things this particular issue should fit. Are there solutions? Does it really impact me personally? Because I have details and because potential solutions are discussed I come to envision it as yet one more challenge in a life where challenges are to be expected. Not necessarily a good thing but something that I am resigned to dealing with. A far different sensibility than what the mainstream news organizations engender.

Why do I bring this up on my Energy Bible blog? Simple, the environmental media is often as guilty as the mainstream media in playing upon people's fears. Its not that environmental problems are not important or even critical, its that too often the environmental media has been equally guilty of presenting critical topics like global warming or energy with the same lack of detail and analysis that we see on the nightly news shows. As an environmental activist I see it as our duty not to engage in the same type of self-serving fear marketing as the traditional media.

I am convinced that the United States, and the world for that matter, are facing a demanding set of problems caused by decades of poorly managing our production and use of energy. The problems are complex and will not be solved quickly. That being said I have tremendous faith in the ingenuity of human beings and am confident that the problems are something we can address and there are thousands of people around the planet coming up with practical solutions to our energy problems every day. The Energy Bible Web site is dedicated not just to pointing out the problems, but to sharing these solutions. We try hard to provide complete information on each energy topic with enough depth that a person can make good judgements as to how to proceed. To us, this type of detailed and comprehensive coverage of energy issues and solutions is the antidote to fear marketing. We hope you agree!