One news story is a decoy to cover up the other much bigger one. We're constantly being bombarded with these red herrings by our mainstream media today. It's not very easy to lie outright, so the next best thing is to distract people, waste their limited time in attention lavished on less consequential news, so the bigger more consequential ones get side tracked.
A thumb rule we can use is : which event/happening is institutional, centralized, top-down, large-scale-effects with major money involved; and which event/happening is sporadic, self-limiting, decentralized, non-deliberate and doesn't involve major money?
Case of California ice bucket challenge craze:
In this case, those teenagers etc cannot physically deprive California of its water resources single-handedly; and it's obvious they aren't following the directions of any central command; and neither are they making a ton of money.
But this news falsely attributes California's water shortage crisis to these people, while blissfully ignoring the companies sucking out water from the acquifers to bottle and sell it, reaping in big profits.. the golf courses and other luxury consumers of millions of liters of water. Those guys wasting millions of times more water than the ice bucket crazies don't get any of the attention
Case of Smriti Irani's qualifications saga:
Again, a lot of time spent in a thoroughly inconsequential matter. It is a waste of time to either attack or defend here. Yet it's made out to be some major issue.
While at the same time, severe structural issues in the higher education scene across the nation are conveniently ignored. And, the OTHER MINISTERS at the Centre who have gotten appointed, including those with criminal charges against them, get conveniently side tracked. Smriti is the fall guy.
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