Broadcast news is shallow, lazy, and irresponsible. Nowhere is this more evident than in their coverage of the Power Ball Lotto. Leading up to the drawings there are cheery reports as to how fast tickets are selling, and personal interviews with buyers telling us the wonderful things they will do if they win. The news delights in showing long lines of people clutching their cash, hopeful smiles on their faces. What they don't mention or cover are the number of those people in those lines who are spending the rent money, cash that could be used for their children, money they should be saving for the future. All in the hopes that they will be that one person in 292 million who wins, at latest count, a billion dollars. (Who on this earth needs a billion dollars?) You might as well show people walking up to a seaside cliff and tossing their money into the ocean. For the past several drawings there has been no winner, which should show these gullible dreamers how futile lotteries are. Eventually somebody will win, and more than likely be crushed by the burden of dealing with so much money, so many pleading friends and bitter enemies, possible threats, and the horrible realization they are not that much happier. But this isn't something the news ever reports on. It's too real, too disturbing. So you'll see giddy anchors gleefully reporting the latest lottery figures. Meanwhile in homes all over America millions of people will be looking at little pieces of paper whose numbers are nothing like the that of winning draw and wishing that the hadn't thrown away so much money on an impossible dream.
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