Junk Food Media

Posted April 09, 2019

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Why is a bowl of breakfast cereal like most TV news?

Because it has almost no nutritional value?

They say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. WebMD tells us that breakfast gives you a chance to get in some vitamins and nutrients from healthy foods like dairy, grains, and fruits. If you don’t eat it, you aren’t likely to get all of the nutrients your body needs.

So you have to wonder why 'food companies' like Kellog's (for example) would offer 'breakfast cereals' modeled after Cereals modeled after Pop-Tarts, Oreos, Nutter Butter, Chips Ahoy and Nilla wafers. 

Lucky Charms is in the midst of a promotional giveaway of marshmallow-only boxes of its cereal. Particularly egregious is a new Peeps based cereal, which The Washington Post recently described as sugar-coated sugar.

In a nation in which one in three children are facing obesity, one must wonder what the 'food companies' are thinking when they put this stuff out as breakfast food.

This occurred to me while I was watching a local TV newscast.  The stories were a fire, a car crash, a girl hit by a car whilst crossing the street and a robbery; followed by sports and weather. 

This, in the largest city in the US, with a population of 8.6 million people. 

Really, is all the news that happened that is of importance?

In all honesty, except for the poor bastard whose apartment in the Bronx burned out, the couple in the car crash, the girl hit by the car (she was interviewed so seemed to be fine) and the store owner who was robbed, I would say that the stories covered as 'news' had about 0% impact on 99.99999% of the people who live in NY. 

What they were we watching? The digital equivalent of Peeps Breakfast Cereal - all sugar, no content.

The purpose of the 'food companies' is not to provide you with nutritious food - otherwise, we might have breakfast cereal that actually had some value - you know, nuts and seeds and berries.  It is hard to believe, but Post, the cereal company, just released a cereal called Sour Patch Kids.  The idea of pouring milk over something called 'sour' strikes me as particularly disgusting, but that's another story.

In any event... 

The 'food companies are in business to make a profit, so they will design and sell you whatever appeals most to you, and in this case, (as in almost every case) sugar is a sure addictive winner. Nutrition? You must be kidding. 

Likewise, the media companies don't work for you. They work for the advertisers and the advertisers pay for eyeballs, The more eyeballs the media companies can deliver, the more money they make.  Hence, they, like the cereal companies, want to offer only the most addictive things they can find - even if it is a bowl of peeps or a spectacular fire in the Bronx.

Neither has much 'nutritional' value, but that is not their business.

Until now, you, as the consumer, of either food or news, did not have a lot of choice.  

Until now.

As you may have noticed, there is a growing trend toward healthy eating.  On my own side, we have been growing our own fruits and vegetables, and let me tell you, once you eat homegrown raspberries, for example, you are going to be hard pressed to equate Froot Loops with fruit.

What we do with food, the organic movement, we can also now do with news and journalism, thanks to the miracle of the iPhone and the web.

If you don't like what you see on TV news; if it does not reflect the way you see your own community, you are more than free to have 'organic media'.

If you'd like to know more about how to do this, contact me here (contact@thevj.com), and I will send you a free copy of How To Start Your Own TV Channel.

It's about as hard as growing tomatoes, which can be very satisfying indeed. 

You can also watch our How To Start Your Own TV Channel course.