Watching the tsunami of sensational news reporting lately
reminded me of a great revelation in my own soporific broadcasting career.
It was 1966 or 67 when I first learned about the Fear
Filter. Or course, it wasn’t called that; it was a lesson, of sorts, in
reporting news. As a radio dj “in the business” for a couple years and
thoroughly untrained in the ways of Journalism, my lessons in reporting all came
from classes at Monkey-See U. Back then, by watching my station’s News
Director, Jim Erwin, the news was Who, What, When, Where, To What Degree and
occasionally Why. Since Jim was the
News Dept., he and the AP machine were the first and last words in our news
content. Of course, the rest of the air staff helped out, phoning in “news tips”
if/when we happened upon them (mostly traffic accidents).
Then the Civil Rights movement came to town with its
marches, demonstrations and speeches. Through a series of boring events, I got
tapped to cover the most inflammatory ones for the network; we were a Mutual
News affiliate. This was great! I got the coveted “national exposure” and –
more importantly to starving LSU student - $50 per feed! Against this
background is when I learned about the Fear Filter, how basic, how important as
well as how remunerative it was. It remains so today except, over the last 50
years, it has been on steroids.
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