Since my maternal grandfather had eight siblings, the number of cousins on my mother’s side of the family measured in the dozens. I didn’t even know many of their names, but I did know one by his nickname “Dark Cloud”. 

I never saw Dark Cloud wear any clothes that were not solid black. He paced around wearing a permanent scowl. If we were at a family function and someone commented how delicious the food was, he would reply, “don’t eat too much or it will make you as fat as Aunt Eunice”. 

In contrast to Will Rogers, Dark Cloud never met a man that he liked. Every bit of news, even if it was good, would somehow be interpreted as a bad omen.

We all know Dark Clouds in our lives. They’re the chicken littles of the world, always proclaiming that the sky is falling. 

This brings me to today’s news about the current economic crisis described by many in the media as our generation’s great depression. My take on all of this is that we’re getting our information from the media version of Dark Cloud. Allow me to explain. 

The Chicago Tribune is near bankruptcy, as the New York Times is looking to sell its office building in order to raise working capital. The Rocky Mountain News is now defunct, and the Seattle Post Intelligencer is on its last legs. It’s no surprise that our nation’s dailies are experiencing these difficulties, since by the time the morning paper arrives; we’ve all read the same news – for free – on the internet.

Broadcast media isn’t doing much better. Cable television and the internet have fragmented the monopolies that the major networks once enjoyed. As a child I remember that our network news options were limited to ABC, NBC and CBS. Now we have twenty four hour news channels such as MSNBC, CNN and Fox News, not to mention constant streaming news video on hundreds of internet sites. While television viewership as a whole continues to rise, each of the major networks has experienced a dramatic fall in the amount of viewers tuning in.

Naturally those working in the media feel the pain. They worry about their jobs, which weren’t all that high paying to begin with. Several years ago my sister worked once as a reporter for the News-Press here in Fort Myers. Trust me, those folks don’t make much more than minimum wage to begin with, and now many of them wonder if they’re going to be receiving paychecks at all for very much longer.

So I believe that other than a select few, most of those in the media have become our own Dark Cloud. Because they are all so frightened about their own futures, they tend to look at the world through their own dark clouded lenses. 

Everything, it seems, is reported as the beginning of the end. I believe, in fact, that the swine flu scare is even a part of this phenomenon. The media is so tuned into hysteria that anything that has the faintest whiff of becoming bad news is reported on as if it’s the next apocalypse. Yes, a few have died of the swine flu. But in the same time period, I would bet that many others have died of less serious strains of a flu virus.

The next time you read in the paper about the end of capitalism, or tune in to a broadcast about the end of our way of life, keep in mind the source of the doomsday predictions. We can’t let Dark Cloud blot out our own futures and become a self fulfilling prophecy.

©2009 Craig R. Hersch .Learn more at www.sbshlaw.com