Two Georges.

During the darkest days of Covid, my wife and I had National Public Radio on for hours a day. 

To listen to the news, we'd follow the feed through different cities. Tuning into Boston public radio, New York, Philadelphia. We'd follow the sun to Chicago, Kansas City, Denver, San Francisco, Los Angeles. We were trying our damndest to stay informed. To know what was going on. 

I realized after about a month of this rather than becoming better informed, we were being driven crazy.

When the news is always on, it's always on repeat. 

And as far as reporting on Covid went, the same stories, with the same bifurcations were played over and over again. Half the reports were about deaths and crowded hospitals. Half the reports were about Covid being nothing more than a bad cold.

The sides were drawn.

The stories on repeat.

Minds were made up.

The news was no longer providing information. It was just reinforcing adamantine points of view.

It was then I turned off NPR, and in fact, all broadcast news. 

Since then, judging by my social media feeds, the propensity of the news not to be 'new' has only gotten worse.

Every day there are 27 or 39 or 76 outrages. 

Every day there the sides get further and further apart.

The tone gets shriller.

The scorn and disdain angrier.

And every day it's on repeat.

We learn nothing, we improve not a lick, and we're no better able to entertain empathy or learn about the other "side."

I suppose I could sum my thesis up in just give words.

There's no news in news.

That's probably not quite accurate. But because the news has to fill so much time, because it has to always be on, much of it is repeated to the point of meaninglessness.

I think the same has happened to advertising.

I grew up in a world where most marketing people understood that "the best advertising is news." But when brands decide to release literally thousands of ads a day, much of those ads are far from news. They're merely repetitions. 

Many times I've reprinted six rules for better writing from Orwell's seminal 1946 essay, "Politics and the English Language." Over my 42-year career, I've probably shared it with one-hundred agency people and fifty clients. 

Here it is, one more time.

And because maybe it can stand some freshening after 80 years of being ignored, I took a hand and adapting Orwell's tips for our era of messaging inundation. (Current media practices say, impact doesn't matter--repetition does. That being the case, my rules--and I'm no Orwell--might be of nominal value.)

My Six rules, which no one will read, might be worth following.