I was feeling pretty good as I made my first coffee of the day at 7.10 am this morning (for the record it’s Saturday 16 January 2010). The snow had not affected plans for the 3^rd module of our NLP Master Practitioner Programme – and I was looking forward to going in to facilitate today’s session and was happily anticipating some of the good things we were going to be doing and exploring together.

Then I turned on Radio 4’s flagship “TodayProgramme” to find out what was happening in the big world out there.

Big mistake. I was just in time to hear presenter Jim Noughtie putting on his ‘sad-and-moving-story’ voice and beginning to read from one of the Rupert Murdoch tabloids…. “…the bloated and rotting corpses in the intense heat…” was all I heard.

Fortunately I was able to switch him off in time. It was about the terrible earthquake in Haiti, of course, and Jim had managed to evoke some images. Not what I, or anyone else, needs at any time let alone 7.10 am as you begin your day.

Professionalism in action?

Like all good presenters Jim is able to play with the emotions of his listeners (or at least, those who allow him to). Jim has a special voice he uses when he wants to do the heart-wrenching stories: he lowers his tonality, makes his delivery a bit slower and a bit hesitant and, being a good Celtic story-teller,  even manages to introduce a little emotional ‘catch’ into it as well. It’s very well done, to give credit where is it due. Very professional – as a piece of manipulative radio.

Jim was reading an article on the Today Programme (listenership 6.6 million) written by some journalist in the 600,000 circulation tabloid called The Times which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News International. In doing this Naughtie and his editors ensured that the journalist reached 10 times his normal audience. And proved to Murdoch that manipulative prose gets attention.

What is their objective?

Why? What was the reasoning behind reading such a gruesome article? What were Jim and the Today editors’ aims in doing this?

(Incidentally, like hundreds of thousands of others, I’d already contributed to the UK’s Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) who, also incidentally, have raised £10,000,000 in the past 24 hours. They’re doing a great job already. I’d contributed two days ago in Swanage Post Office without having to have Jim do his shock-horror stuff.

Yes, it could be argued that without the media shocking us with such horrific images we wouldn’t dig deep. It could be argued… but I’m not as cynical about people in general as I am about journalists.

I think using the gory stuff is more about furthering careers and boosting ratings than supporting organisations like the DEC.

Follow the world’s suffering – from the comfort of your settee

In old times before mass communication we knew only about events occurring in our immediate locality. We’d get upset if someone in our village died. Or lost their most productive cow. Events outside our immediate locality didn’t affect or bother us – that was ‘foreign’.

Then newspapers came along and we learned about things happening in other corners of the world much quicker – sometimes within weeks of the event happening.

Then radio and television came along followed by satellite communication. Nowadays, instead of having to wait till someone in your village get ill or has a accident, you can watch real-life disasters as they are happening 24 hours of the day with the TV news channels! We can watch that earthquake or tsunami or mudslides or tribal massacre or suffering famine victim or the aftermath of air crashes in real time – just as they are happening…  and in close-up… and in HD and stereo!

Self Protection

We talk a lot in NLP of about the importance, and the value, of managing our state i.e. of aiming to feel good more of the time. And there are lots of NLP techniques for helping us to do this. Yet even more essential than using such techniques is the quite simple matter of limiting the amount of  depressing input getting into our minds.

Continuing to listen to Jim Naughtie’s manipulative delivery or the journalist’s manipulative style of writing would certainly have changed my mood; “what right have I to feel good and feel enthusiastic about the great day I have planned when there is so much suffering in the world??!”

Unless we manage the input – the input of bad news, that is – we could easily feel guilty about feeling happy.

Yes, but people are suffering!

Yes, they are – and right now this minute, in the case of Haiti – and they definitely need our help.

But making yourself feel bad doesn’t in any way help them.  Instead donate to the DEC (or whatever equivalent organisation exists in your country) and then get on with your life!

There will be another major disaster in a month or two – and lots of smaller ones all around the world are occurring all the time. Do what you can, in practical ways – and then decide there is no point in making yourself unhappy about it – that won’t help anyone.

So what makes journalists tick?

In NLP we also give a lot of attention to motivation – to what motivates someone to do something. In old style NLP jargon this is called the ‘intention behind the behaviour’ and it is one of the core principles of NLP. And, put simply, it seeks the ‘payoff’ that a person gets from acting in a particular manner.

And if we than ask ourselves this question about journalists interesting possible answers raise their little heads…

Nearly 50 years ago, back in 1964, things were very bad in the former Belgian Congo. They had a highly confusing and very brutal civil war as the Republic of the Congo tried to establish itself after years of Belgian rule.

At one stage, as 100’s of traumatised Belgian survivors of the siege of Stanleyville disembarked from their rescuing plane, an un-named foreign correspondent was heard to shout out “is there anyone here who’s been raped and speaks English…?”

A journalist in action.

Related articles

http://www.nlp-now.co.uk/health_beliefs_hypnosis.htm (March 2006)

https://nlp-now.co.uk/nlp-and-the-shaky-markets/ (March 2008)

https://nlp-now.co.uk/nlp-mental-perceptual-filters/ (August 2008)

http://www.nlp-now.co.uk/gloom_doom1.htm (November 2008)

https://nlp-now.co.uk/doom-gloow-part-2-our-unbiased-bbc/  (January 2009)

https://nlp-now.co.uk/how-channel4-exploits-9_11-deaths/  (September 2009)

https://nlp-now.co.uk/the-blue-monday-myth-or-lie/ (January 2011)