Media: a storm called Sandy

30/10/2012

The Conservative Government puts on from time to time the verbal trimmings of a patriotic vocabulary; but it spares no opportunity to commit itself, if possible more deeply than ever, to that view of the European Community …

Coincidentally, that is so relevant to my previous piece on the EU budget, where "the verbal trimmings of a patriotic vocabulary" describes perfectly Cameron's rhetoric on the EU. But, like so much in politics, it is not real. Simply, it is done for effect.

One wonders, therefore, how much of the torrent of publicity over Hurricane Sandy – dubbed a "superstorm" by the media - is more for effect than real. As Mrs EU Referendum remarked, it's a bit like Hebden Bridge only on a larger scale. Mind you, then – back in July – we at least had the fun of watching BBC hackettes trying to pronounce "Mytholmroyd".

The fact that the "major disaster" as declared by president Obama comes a week before the presidential election may, of course, have something to do with the hype. With the legacy media largely supportive of Obama, this gives him the opportunity to show his form as the "Great Leader" that everyone should naturally want to return to Oval Office.

As for the "at least 16 dead" – in the United States and Canada - about which the Telegraph is hyperventilating, that is considerably less than the ninety or so people killed each day on the roads in the US alone. Given that the hurricane is keeping people indoors and off the roads, the net death toll for the duration may be less than average. Sandy could well be a life-saver.

Part of the gush of publicity, however, arises from the emotional incontinence of the legacy media, its inability to maintain an adult perspective on anything. Its coverage verges on the infantile, in terms of its lack of proportion. In truth, this is not a particularly severe storm – just a rather big one, in an unusual place.

As always, there is a penalty to be paid in driving other news out – although the bonus is silencing Huffington Post. But, since the legacy media in all its arrogance believes news to be only that which it deems necessary to tell us, that is no great loss. As always, we have to look beyond the headlines to find out what is really going on.

All that has really changed, with this storm, therefore, is that the headlines are bigger and more hysterical than usual – although as time progresses, the distinction between the various bouts of hysteria served up to us become blurred. They all merge into one.

In a few weeks, we will no doubt be remembering a hurricane called "Jimmy" which flooded out the BBC.