Have Pen Will Travel
I often find myself stressed more than I would elect to be. As a confidential mercenary writer, I am always looking for the different perspective, the odd twist, what is noteworthy about a story or report, and what my client is excluding from the information I am being provided.
I look at the news in the same way. My Achilles heel is a conditioned idealism which is always with me, and which I feel I need to compensate for. I have only been here a couple of days and already I have erred substantially due to this automatic idealism. But to do otherwise might be worse.
I must admit, in spite of the annoyance I have over my surplus idealism, it provides a damper for stress. Another thing that makes me tranquil is that
I have no wish to be acerbic in the fashion of Ambrose Bierce, H. L. Mencken, Gore Vidal, Hunter S. Thompson or Christopher Hitchens, but I am often stressed by the missing news.
Has anyone noticed that what seems to be missing from the story in New York of the escaped convict who was shot and killed is of greater magnitude than what is there? It was reported he brandished a shotgun, was shot dead by border patrol. There is more story missing than is there. No report that he discharged his firearm. No body camera footage of what actually happened. Hundreds of our finest were in the vicinity, perhaps dozens on the scene. We don't even know how many times the convicted killer was hit.
It strikes me that it would be practical and useful, all other things being equal, for pictures and details to be broadcast and published in print, particularly if they were not repeated ad infinitum for weeks. The other fugitive might well be convinced thereby to find a way to allow himself to be caught alive rather than suffer the same fate. As it stands, he may well believe he will be butchered Bonnie and Clyde fashion, even should he wish to give up. Hardly an incentive to end the million dollar a day disaster. There is no pending trial for the dead fugitive. Therefore there seems no reason to withhold the details and every reason not to.
Does this have a stressful impact on our collective survival? Perhaps as much as seeing the collapse of the twin towers or the Challenger VII disaster hundreds of times. I now must limit how often I will allow myself to view these particularly stressful events. But the stress of speculation over the “management” (censorship) of news stories can be serious as well. Not a month goes by without me hearing one sort of conspiracy theory or another from people I have direct contact with or in the media. It must be infectious. Listen to me now.
Is it paranoid to engage in such conjecture, or just stressful? Or both?