The title of today's blog - for those who were not around prior to 1975 - comes from what is probably the most recognizable quote from Walt Kelly's long-running social satire comic strip, Pogo.
It was a reworking of Commodore Perry's famous 1813 quote "We have met the enemy, and they are ours", but turned around to suit the hysteria of the Joe McCarthy era of the early 1950's.
#14,104
Four years and 4,000 blogs ago - during the height of the West African Ebola outbreak - we looked at a viral fake news story (see All The Ebola News Not Fit To Print), which was spreading across twitter and Facebook, claiming that students at an Elementary school in Olanthe, Kansas had been infected with the Ebola virus.
It was, as you might expect, a hoax. One `justified' in the small print on the website that originally published it by stating they were an `entertainment site'.This wasn't the only egregious example (see A Look Down The Ebola Rabbit Hole), but it was the most brazen one. Fellow blogger Dr. Ian Mackay spent a good deal of time debunking many of these false Ebola messages (see Referral : Mackay On Fake/False Ebola Images), as did Crof over at Crofsblog.
Not that I suspect it did a lot of good, as we were almost certainly preaching to the choir. People who read regularly read our blogs don't need to be told when a news story is outrageously and blatantly false.Over the past couple of days Crof has highlighted a number of `fake' Ebola stories, tweets, and rumors (see here, and here), many of which have a political agenda.
At the same time I've spent a good deal of time looking at equally appalling YouTube videos claiming Ebola is airborne, is already here in the United States, and that the Ebola vaccine is either (a) ineffective and dangerous or (b) will only be made available to the rich and powerful (take your pick).While I'm sure these stories are being amplified by Russian bots and `true believers', this is not a new phenomenon. In fact, it has been coming on like a freight train for decades, fathered by mainstream news, and supercharged by the Internet.
Those of us old enough to qualify for a pension can remember a time when presenting mainstream news was a solemn, almost sacred, endeavor. Edward R. Murrow, John Cameron Swayze, Walter Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley . . . . they were perhaps the most trusted names in America.
And in the early 1950s, televised evening news was relegated to a 15 minute block of time, 5 days a week. If you wanted more, you had to tune into your radio at the top of the hour.News back then was segregated from entertainment, at least in the eyes of broadcasters. Sure, newspapers would blur the lines, by including comics, human interest stories, and an `agony aunt' advice column or two.
But the `news' - at least from mainstream outlets - was usually delivered straight. Tabloids - once called scandal sheets - have always flourished in the periphery.By the 1960s, things began to change. First at the local news level, where TV stations discovered that their news divisions could rake in substantial profits, since they could keep all of the commercial revenue.
Local news went from a half hour format in the morning - and in the evening - to an hour. Then there was the noon report, and the 11pm news.Profits soared, and some stations went to a two-hour news block in the evening. But, in order to fill that time, they had to add `fluff news'. They either created or bought packaged content - cooking segments, consumer affairs reports, Hollywood interviews - anything to fill time.
It didn't take long for the networks to recognize a gold mine, and they followed suit. `Infotainment' became the standard for news.By the early 1980s, the first 24 hour all news network (CNN) was launched, and has since spawned many imitators. All of them using `grabbers' to keep people watching. Dramatic, often ominous music, flashy graphics, `teasers' for upcoming stories, and controversial - and often partisan - reporting.
While Edward R. Murrow might have been appalled, P.T. Barnum would have been delighted. And the news cycle changed from 24 hours, to every six hours, and now is almost undefinable.In the span of a couple of decades, we moved from `broadcasting' to `narrow-casting' the news. Designing content for a specific groups, rather than the mass market. And it was a cash cow.
The devolution of the news continued in the mid-1990s with the widespread availability of the Internet, where suddenly anyone with a modem could speak on the world stage. Blogs and websites could be set up, and even monetized - that could spread whatever message they desired - regardless of its veracity.
In 2005, YouTube was launched, and the internet changed forever. Videos could go `viral' overnight, garnering more views in 24 hours than my blog has received over the past 14 years.
And the more subscribers a channel had, and the more views a video got, the more money they would make. YouTube stars were born, and some became millionaires.Whether it is funny cat videos, predictions of Yellowstone's eruption killing us all, UFO coverups, the latest dangerous `challenge' video, or fear mongering over Ebola, if you can attract clicks, you can make money.
And everybody on the Internet is scrambling for their share of the pie, creating a culture of `Can you top this!', for an increasingly addicted audience.Including the mainstream news, who have squandered a good deal of their credibility as they have continued to pare down the quality of their science reporting (Please, I beg of you, stop calling African Swine Fever `Swine Flu') in favor of more populist fare.
While I'm sure there are political groups exploiting these videos for their own agendas, the reason why we have a plethora of anti-vaccine websites, Ebola scare videos, and every other conspiracy theory you might care to name, is because there is an audience for them.
They each resonate with some segment of society. They reinforce their beliefs, and prejudices, and fears. And with more than 1.3 billion YouTube users, you don't need much market share to make money.
And each view, each click through, feeds the beast that threatens to devours us. Hence the title to today's blog.I wish I had a solution. I don't. I abhor the idea of censorship, and don't see that as working in the internet age in any event. And while it might offer me some kind of solace to rail against the trend each day, and to single out offenders in my blog, its like standing on the shore and screaming at the incoming tide.
I try to take comfort in believing that the tide will eventually turn, that something will reverse the anti-science trajectory we are on, and that `snake oil' salesmen will be recognized and marginalized for what they are.The only questions are, when . . . at what cost.
