Over-Exaggerations on the News

This past weekend I saw an episode of one of my favorite television shows, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, that I felt really was a statement to the media. In the episode, the characters of the show are watching the news when an on location meteorologist explains that the largest storm in a decade was heading to Philadelphia. The news piece took place in a WallMart-like place depicting people stocking up as if for a doomsday. And if you know the show, you could probably guess how "the gang" probably responded: unearthing a bunker originally intended for Y2K, one of the characters, Mac, flees for higher ground, and a full-out looting occurs at the WallMart. Of course at the end they discover that the storm is only a drizzle

Despite the fact that this show is a comedy, I like the statement they've made here. The episode was really a mockery of how the media over-exaggerates news pieces to get more views and get a rise out of the viewer. We see this kind of stuff every time CNN is put on or Fox News: over-hyping and somewhat dramatizing disasters, war, and explosions. Anything boring; like peace talks, financial breakthroughs, or scientific discoveries quite possibly won't see the light of day on some channels.

This brings up another interesting point: that perhaps what they choose or choose not to put on the air dictates what stories we hear. For example, if a plane crash happened on the same day of a breakthrough in the peace-talks between North and South Korea, the latter may have not even seen the light of day on most stations. Now, with most people getting their news from the internet, we see less over-exaggerations, as people get a story from multiple different sides and biases. This helps filter out the exaggerations  and bias, but also lets you choose the stories you want to hear.