For many years, my wife and I had the news feed from National Public Radio on in our apartment. In fact, I was an early adopter and before every radio station streamed its broadcasts, I had a receiver that looked like this, with a remote control.
I would follow NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered across the country. From New York's public radio station, to Chicago's to Los Angeles's public radio stations. I like news, and though I listened for hours a day, I felt like I was getting a constant flow of updated news.
I continued this listening habit until about six months in to the Covid pandemic. It was then I realized the news was repeating the same set of stories.
There was one tranche of news that talked about the spread of the disease, over-loaded hospitals, deaths, and how the world was coping with the pandemic. There was another tranche of news that said it was all fake, that it would all blow over, and that maskers and people taking the disease seriously were over-reacting.
The point here isn't to take sides. The point is that the news stopped telling me news.
The "sides" (and news isn't supposed to have sides) were so entrenched, that newness no longer mattered, repetition did--in hopes of getting through to people who would never change their minds.
You experience this today in almost all sorts of what used to be news. If there's a war, we hear reports on the intractable sides of the war--why we should or should not support this side or that. If there's a horrific hurricane, we get some reportage about the havoc the storm caused, but we get much more discussion about climate change and whether or not it's actually happening. Even this political season, we hear little about actual issues and more about the antipodal-ness of the candidates and their beliefs.
In short, we are so polarized in so many ways, battles about polarization have supplanted actual news on the news. When I do listen to the news, there's little new information presented to me. I rarely learn anything new. Usually, I merely get information that reinforces my "pre-existing" thinking.
For as long as there have been humans on our pale blue dot, the best advertising has always been news.
If you can tell me something I don't know that's valuable to me, there's a good chance you can convince me to try something. If you can tell me something new, if you can give me some news, there's a good chance I'll pay attention.
Most of the ads I see have no news value.
I see McDonald's ads, for instance, that have a picture of french fries, as if I didn't know McDonald's sells french fries. Even the Tesco ads that are sweeping through the internet this week and seem to be widely praised tell me nothing about Tesco that I don't already know.
I'm just not sure why I should care. Where's the news? What's your promise? What do you do for me?
About 99-percent of the ads I see--wherever I see them, and about 99.999-percent of the messages I see in social, are devoid of anything I might care about.
They contain nothing new.
They contain no news.
They say, or show nothing in a new and arresting way.
I know there are legions of marketers and agencies and even politicians who believe brands need to be "always on." I'm sure that's wrong.
Because always on is always annoying if you're not always interesting.
"On" isn't the starting point of light. Light is.
No one needs always on.
We need always illumination.
--
This isn't new.
And it isn't news.
But.
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