Thinly Read: Trend stories are a disturbing trend

ShareThis

It's a disturbing trend in newsrooms across the nation: Journalists like to write trend stories.
The trend story is known to writers everywhere as the easiest way to beat a deadline. Find a handful of people doing something, preferably something shocking, disturbing or alarming, and claim that it's a trend. Describe the activity in a purposefully vague manner, call some experts for their opinions, suggest that this could happen to YOUR CHILDREN and call it a day.
Trend stories are light on facts and research and heavy on shock and colons. There is no official explanation for the colons, but they seem to add credibility.
Here's one shocking trend: Kids smoking candy.
A recent article titled "Alarming Trend: Kids Literally Smoking Candy" (which could have been titled "Alarming Trend: Journalists Don't Know What 'Literally' Means") describes the process. Kids take some Smarties candy, crush it and suck in the powder. They then blow out a sugary "smoke."
Do the kids actually inhale the candy? Do they simply take it into their mouths and blow a smokelike powder? Is it one piece, several, an entire roll? These distinctions are not discussed.
Is it shocking, alarming or disturbing? Well, yes. And are YOUR CHILDREN doing it right now in the garage? They could be.
The article next divulges its methods of research: "a quick search on YouTube." That's right -- someone got paid to watch kids blow candy dust on the Internet. This same person will probably be writing about layoffs and the economy next week.
With the details of the trend vaguely identified and the fact that it is a verifiable trend established (there are "dozens of how-to videos," after all), the trend article then moves on to the expert opinions.
First, a "drug-safety expert" weighs in. She suggests that the mimicry of cigarette smoking or substance inhalation could reflect a predisposition toward actual smoking or substance abuse. She probably learned this in drug-safety-expert school.
Next, a doctor is consulted. If you really want to lend some credibility to your trend story, get a doctor's opinion. A doctor counts for practically 10 colons. In this instance, an ear, nose and throat doctor discusses the merits of putting sugary bits in your ears, nose or throat. The verdict: not such a great idea.
In the course of his interview, the doctor uses words such as "growth medium" and "laryngospasm," which give the article enough gravitas to guarantee a trend-Pulitzer or Trendie. One has to wonder if this doctor was chosen from a phonebook or if he is known to reporters as someone who will take a question about inhaling candy without hanging up.
By now the trend has been established, blown entirely out of proportion, given credence by experts of dubious credentials and prepared for publication and mainstream overreaction. In a matter of days my mother will call me, certain that even though I am a grown adult, I may be aspirating sugar.
This is the true measure of a trend story's impact -- hours between initial release and phone contact by my mother. I would give this piece 48 hours, possibly less. It's a pretty good one.
And with that, the writer is free until the next deadline looms. Next week: "Pirates: Will they recruit your children next?"

(Ben Grabow writes for the young, the urban and the easily amused. Contact him at thinlyread(at)gmail.com.)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
THINLY READ