Media Hurricane Earl Ravages the East Coast Economy

Category 4, 2, no ... 1, Media Hurricane Earl battered businesses up and down the East Coast Labor Day weekend as weather forecasters, media provocateurs, and incumbent politicians kicked up a howling blow that destroyed the hopes of tourist trade businesses struggling to survive Recovery Summer.

A typical warning from ABC News: "Hurricane Earl is on a collision course with the East Coast and Americans from the Carolinas to Cape Cod are bracing for the worst hurricane to hit the area in almost 20 years."

Uh-huh. And why are we cancelling our Labor Day plans, boarding up windows, pulling boats out of the water, and heading for high ground when anyone that spends five minutes on the NOAA web site can see that the storm is both losing power and tracking out to sea? Nevermind that Earl was NEVER on a collision course with the East Coast. Rather, the outer fringes of "uncertainty" in the storm's forecasted track barely kissed major Northeast media markets.

The root cause of such hubbub? Something called the Political Precautionary Principle.

The Political Precautionary Principle states that no one will ever be held accountable for issuing dire false alarms regardless of how devastating these are to someone else's business. Whether it's weather, climate, electronically activated car brakes, cell phone radiation, or silicone implants the principle remains the same. Shouting fire in someone else's business is not only protected speech, it might land you a Congressional hearing and a prime time slot on the six o'clock news.

On the other hand there are many tangible benefits that come from whipping up a good media frenzy. Like ratings, for one. Or giving poor President Barrack Obama something else to talk about besides unemployment. Now that he's declared a state of emergency for Massachusetts think how much easier it will be for him to shovel pre-election walking-around-money into the pockets of embattled Governor Deval Patrick.

Do you wonder why the public remains so susceptible to media misinformation when the web makes it easy for anyone to dig up primary sources for themselves? Are there still that many of us laboring under the false belief that there is such a thing as journalistic integrity? Say what you want about bad boy Andrew Breitbart, but Breitbart TV is proof positive that a right wing zealot can take to the airwaves with selectively edited ambush interviews following exactly the same formula left wing zealots perfected on Sixty Minutes. The latter used to be called responsible journalism. Perhaps one day people will realize that they are both shtick.

News Flash - you don't have to believe everything you hear just because it's shouted over a TV set. Before you cancel those travel plans, junk your Toyota, toss your cell phone, or invest in windmill futures take a few minutes and check out the facts for yourself.

Sure, there is as much misinformation on the internet as there is on TV. But guess what? You get to be your own editor. You can decide for yourself which sources to believe and how much effort you want to expend cross-checking purported facts. Uncle Walter is not going to descend from the heavens and assure you that "That's the way it is." Those days are gone forever.

It may take a little work but self reliance has its rewards. The sooner more of us learn to do our own investigative reporting the better we can protect ourselves from demagogues angling to separate us from both our money and our freedoms by promising to protect us from the next calamity that always seem to be lurking around the corner.

Hurricane warnings are not be ignored. But thanks to the internet, it doesn't take much effort to figure out when the media are crying wolf.

Have a safe and happy Labor Day.