Unprecedented Means Nothing

When I wrote for a Cape Cod newspaper, each week I filled twenty pages with community news stemming in large part from local officials' meetings, school calendars, police logs, and random unexpected events. The photos were shot with a K-1000 film camera, always there on the front seat of my car. Burning the midnight oil on an Olivetti manual typewritter in a rat-trap building for low wages felt satisfying somehow. The community counted on the small, local rag for information. It was the only way, other than word of mouth, doubling as fact-checkers around every corner. If I got something wrong, I heard about it. Immediately! It seems like a long time ago. Everything has changed except the news which just keeps on coming.

These days I still read the printed word, albeit online. There is too much information and then again not enough. For every headline there are myriad reports on unprecedented events. Granted there is truth to that, facts belie the gravity of what is actually happening on a regular daily, hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute basis. This is a concern. At least to me and maybe to you.

Unprecedented means "never done or known before". If everything that is happening all the time is unprecedented then let's tell it like it is. The news du jour reporters say over and over how the horrors of rule-breaking by rulers has "never been done before" by comparing news stories in (their) recent memory. A headline screaming "unprecedented" is juxtaposed against every egregious political shenanigan pulled off by some other unsavory politician in the past. Most notably, Nixon with his 1972 Watergate scandal and McCarthy with his 1950 communism attacks are often cited. Both were once unprecedented to be sure and have become a current events litmus test.

When words are overused the meaning is reduced to nothing. Each time the press looks backward to frame a story, today's headline is obfuscated. The story is not in the "never done before", but in the shocking facts needing to be told, clearly and deliberately. The fact is there is nothing else with which to compare today's stories because these stand completely and utterly on their own like "9/11" terrorists taking out the iconinc twin towers and the American atomic bombing in Japan. Nothing compares to these. Each was once and for all. Today is once and for all.

I am not a Historian, but for nearly fifty years I have been an avid news follower. There are many who can explain how we got here, and we should understand our stories and more importantly our own part in them. But as far as I can see, what matters most at this moment is not referring back, but looking ahead; not comparing other bad times, but seeing today's reality for what it is: A NEW World Order Taking Shape. That is today's headline, or should be, printed in 30 point bold for all of us to read and heed because this sets aside every other story written to date.