Ever notice how the news media have to give a title and a theme song to every halfway notable event these days?

Example: We had a record-breaking amount of rain in our region over the weekend, which was quickly dubbed "The Flood of 2006." News updates on the weather could not take place without dramatic music playing in the background and the words "The Flood of 2006" superimposed somewhere on the screen.

I find this troubling. On the one hand, such action tends to overdramatize certain events. I do not want to downplay the events of this weekend--several lives were lost and much property was damaged--but when the "Flood of 2006" gets the same branding as the events currently taking place in the Middle East, it can seem like an overdramatizion.

At the same time, however, such branding also tends to trivialize the same event that also seems overdramatized. The fact that the severe weather we had over the weekend was given a title and a theme song moves it to the realm of the ridiculous, and as a result, it is ridiculed rather than reflected upon with the seriousness it deserves.

Theme songs and titles are the things of Hollywood. In my opinion they do not belong as a part of serious news media. Then again, they crop up in other "serious" places, too, including the church. Are such tools useful in conveying the most serious message that exists: the good news of the gospel? Or do they actually work against the message by mockingly overdramatizing it, and therefore simultaneously trivializing it?

(Just a few thoughts after a long weekend of cleaning out a flooded basement. Share your own thoughts with me...)

Noelle