Dave Kennedy crouched beside the crater, full of excitement as the camera rolled.
"As you can tell, there's a scorch mark on this side here." He pointed to the blackened rock. "So that would have been the angle it came down at. And it is weighty. I'm not sure of its composition, but we're definitely going to have to find out."
Virgin Media News had struck gold. A perfect crater on the beach. Scorch marks. A mysterious rock. An astrophysics enthusiast with theories about cosmic visitors. Within hours, crowds gathered at Portmarnock Beach. Phones emerged. Social posts multiplied. The crater became a pilgrimage site for anyone hoping they'd witnessed something otherworldly.
The reporter delivered breathless updates. The "expert" analyzed impact angles. Scientists were consulted. The story spread.
Two guys with shovels, laughing as they dug a hole in the sand. Days before the "discovery." The cosmic event was a prank. The "meteor crater" was nothing more than a big hole created by beach-goers. The entire spectacle collapsed in seconds.
Every single day, newsrooms need stories compelling enough to make people click, watch, and share. Imagine that pressure. Day after day, you need content that grabs attention. Naturally, your filters for truth get weaker. What matters isn't accuracy anymore. It's whether something attracts eyeballs, because that's how money is made.
This is a perfect example. A silly example. But the same pattern governs more consequential news. What you consume are stories with specific angles designed to capture attention and generate revenue. Each story engineered to make you feel something strong enough to keep watching.
This story was pure glitter. But so is most of what fills our feeds. Nearly every story is engineered to feel more significant than it actually is. Beware. Don’t believe everything you see. This is what Yogi Ramacharaka meant when he wrote that wise people are 'not moved by appearances, nor deceived by the glitter of unreal things.'
The crater was just unusually obvious about it, a literal hole in the ground that became a cosmic mystery. But the same artificial inflation happens with stories that seem more serious, more real, more worthy of your attention.
The wise approach is to stay aware without being swept away. Watch if you want, but don't let it swim into your mind and reshape your reality.
