One Groundhog Day A Year Is Enough For Me

“Groundhog Day is a tradition observed regionally in the United States and Canada on February 2 of every year. It derives from the Pennsylvania Dutch superstition that if a groundhog emerges from its burrow on this day and sees its shadow, it will retreat to its den and winter will go on for six more weeks; if it does not see its shadow, spring will arrive early. In 2024, an early spring was predicted,” says Wikipedia.

But to followers of the political news, Groundhog Day is every day, because if a person decided to abstain from watching cable political news for a week and then resumed watching the program of choice, it would seem as if they hadn’t taken the hiatus.

Because despite the year, month, day or hour, viewers of Fox News would still hear the likes of Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and others on the far right network rant against anything President Joe Biden does.

Viewers who tune in to MSNBC will hear Lawrence O’Donnell and others on the “woke” network have the same guests, who will say the same thing about former President Donald Trump and his lawyers that they have been saying for years.

As for viewers who tune in to CNN, Wolf Blitzer can turn a one or two day story into a month’s long soap opera, without reporting anything new.

But it’s not just the subjects on TV cable channels that remind me of Groundhog Day.

Examples from the two dailies I read every day:

In the Wall Street Journal, if a person read only one Peggy Noonan column a month they wouldn’t miss anything new: The subject matter would most likely be about Joe Biden's age. 

The same is true about certain columnists at the New York Times. Tom Friedman has been writing about the poor Palestinians since before I was old enough to have my mother stop burping me and realized that print columnists, like TV pundits, are just giving their own opinions, which are not necessarily more relevant than yours or mine.  (To paraphrase Teyve from Broadway’s “Fiddler On The Roof.” If you have a soap box people think you know).

Ms. Noonan and Mr. Friedman are not the only columnists at their papers who write about the same subject, but others do not do it as frequent. 

Here’s what I’ve decided to do to distance myself from Groundhog Day-like TV pundits and print columnists. I’m going to limit my watching TV news to ABC, CBS and NBC programs and to stop reading the print columnists.

I’m also going to stop watching the Sunday morning network political round-table shows. What I’ve learned from those shows over the years is, well, nothing. It’s just a bunch of people regurgitating their opinions. And their opinions is not worth more than yours or mine. (See reference to Teyve above.) Reading the news sections of respectable print publications on a steady basis should provide enough information for you to form your own opinions.)

(A few recent examples of Groundhog Day opinions: 1) The so-called political experts who kept hawking the same comments regarding the South Carolina primary until the votes were counted, when everyone knew that it was a non-news story because Donald Trump had such a large lead over Nikki Halley for months 2) The discussions about Joe Biden’s age, which seemingly began while he was still in his mother’s womb. 3) The Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce romance, which had non-sports programs reporting on football.)

Unfortunately, Groundhog Day similarities also apply to our business.

PR tenets formulated by the fathers of our business during the days that dinosaurs roamed the Earth are still taught in communications schools, written in PR texts and practiced at PR agencies, when new and original thinking is needed in order to keep up with the changes in news coverage in order  to attract the attention of journalists.

The way for PR practitioners to catch the eyes of top management, and journalists when pitching them, is to separate yourself from the pack by thinking outside-of-the-box when formulating client programs.

If you don’t stand out from the pack, you’re likely to spend your PR career trying to convince journalists that a number 10 pencil is better than a number 9 one. And given the short life of PR practitioners at agencies, you might be terminated before you’re asked to promote a number 11 pencil.

For me, one Groundhog Day a year is sufficient.