The new pornographers

I recently learned a new word – – Worry Porn.  It concerns the rapidly increasing interest of our news media in negative events, which results in creating worries and fears in those who watch.

Here’s how it works.   Every day, negative news pours from our news outlets.  Bulletin after bulletin – story after story – all related towards some catastrophe which will significantly and severely impact our life and perhaps the life of the planet – or – if not the planet – at least our society.

But, what makes it porn, is the increasing number of viewers and listeners who hang on every story, who yearn for additional information, who need to understand how unimportant they are in relationship to the major events that could mean the end of civilization.  They can’t get enough.

Every day the media broadcasts the number of people infected with Covid, the number of people testing positive, the number of people who have died.  It’s almost like a scoreboard of a college football game.  We have to know more.  We have to see if we can reach a million dead.

Every storm, every event of Mother Nature, is another signal that the world is coming to an end.  Four inches of rain – the second flood is coming.  Snow piled six feet deep in the California mountains, brush fires in Colorado,  freezing weather in New York – – the stories are frightening – but we have to have more.

Riots tear up our cities and we fault our police.  Riots in our nations capital become insurrections and democracy as we know it is at death’s door.

The Worry porn continues day after day and we can’t get enough of it.   That’s what makes news stories porn.  We participate in the worry.  We hang on to every shred of evidence that fits our worries and the future we face. The more we watch negative news, the more they feed us.

Watching network news and news talk shows is our addiction   It’s our porn.  And the pornographers continue to give it to us.   Until we break this addition, we’ll never be happy.

The answer is simple.  Stop watching network news shows.