Manufacturing the Next Crisis

Well, it appears that after five weeks, lots of press conference theatrics and a carton of Newport Lights, Obama and Boehner may be ready to make a deal.

Which is fantastic – unless of course you’re the Chief Page View Officer at the web property of a mainstream media organization or a ratings-obsessed cable news producer who’s forgotten the nobler purpose of the Fourth Estate somewhere along the way.

Already, I can see that the lack of crisis is wearing on the machinery…every single major media outlet picked up a non-story about Instagram today and breathlessly reported it like the fucking Siege of Leningrad.

If the Cliff bomb is diffused and the asteroid fails to hit earth this time, you’re going to need a brand new crisis to keep ’em clicking and tuning in.  Because I’m in the solutions business, I’ve made a new crisis list just in case Europe fails to implode and this Fiscal Cliff business ends up being resolved without a 3000-point stock market sell-off.

For your next crisis, I humbly suggest one of the following:

1. Teenage Dividend Abuse

2. Too Much Employment

3. Hobbitgate

4. The War on Jean Shorts

5. Killer Bees

6. Africanized Killer Bees

7. Groupon Bailout

8. The Blu-Ray Glut

9. Temple Run Doping Scandal

10. Snookflation

Anyway, they’re all yours and I’m sure you’ll find a way to scare the shit out of someone!

Happy programming!