non-news

Yesterday, as I absent-mindedly listened to our local all-news-all-the-time radio station, a thught occurred to me. What if, when we ran out of things to say, we simply ... stopped talking?

This thought occurred to me because the two top stories of the hour were:

1. The City is ready for winter. They have equipment and people and a plan to clear the streets when the snow comes.
2. It's only a month until Christmas comes, so you really should kick your Christmas shopping into high gear if you haven't already.

If that's not a slow news day, I don't know what is. The first one is not news - it's glaringly obvious normal life. It would be news if ... let's see ... there was NO PLAN. Or if WINTER WASN'T COMING THIS YEAR. The second one is not news either. It's just pressure on behalf of the station's advertisers based on today's calendar date.

Imagine if the news anchors had delivered their top stories, looked at each other and said, "Well, clearly we're not needed today. The world is doing not too badly at this very moment, and there's not much to tell. So we're going to stop talking now. When there is some news that is actual news ... we'll be back."

Imagine if, when we ran out of things to say, we stopped talking. (Not blogging though. Blogging doesn't require actual content. Stop smirking at me! What???)