Thursday, August 12, 2010

Media and your kids

We all read, listen or watch the news in some capacity in a day to day basis just to see what is going on in our area and around the world. We hear about new ways of getting sick and how not to be scammed out of money. Don't use this because we did a study and found that blah, blah, blah. If you took everything you saw in the news as fact you would be a freaking mess.

When the whole H1N1 pandemic broke out I was against getting the shot for myself or the kids because I thought it was an over blown issue. I then changed my mind and thought that this might be something more than what they are telling us. But before I went anywhere a co-worker of mine told me his wife worked in the lab that is producing the shot for H1N1. He told me that it was an untested shot and that no one in the plant was getting it because of the possible side effects. That made my mind up and we decided to skip getting the shot which turned out fine for us. Our neighbour got it and him and his kids were very sick for a week after getting it. I don't buy into the hype to easily and am very skeptical anyway. I have worked in the media for some time and know how these things get blown up when they didn't need to be.

The best thing to do from the public view is to be skeptical on everything. Don't think that the media is out to put fear in you because they are trying to inform you to make your own decisions. Maybe not the case in the USA but in Canada it is more reporting on what is happening or what has happened. A good example is the giant hogweed story I read and then blogged about. I was shocked to read it and was genuinely worried about it but I did the research after reading the story to come to my own opinion. I have yet to see giant hogweed and probably won't see any this year but at least I know what to look for and can then understand what it is and what it can do.

The best thing to do is not act on the first impulse and inform yourself before doing anything. They had an equal billing issue with Enbridge that affected 100,000 customers having been under charged all year and having a big bill in July. My first impulse was to panic and think oh great since we are on equal billing. Our July bill came and I was paying more so we had a credit and our gas bill was $16.57! I didn't need to worry and call Enbridge and bitch like I thought about doing. They have more than 100,000 customers on equal billing so it was a small percentage who got screwed. Well not screwed but were being under charged each month. They still used the gas so they have to pay but Enbridge will not charge interest for not paying the full amount and has given them around a year to pay it off. Reasonable and a compromise I think.

Anyway, be informed before you start worrying about something you only know very little about. Remember that the news stories on average are only about a minute and 45 second long. Not enough to get you all the information.....just the scary stuff that gets viewers to watch!

No comments:

Post a Comment