unfiltered perception

En fin artikkel fra journalisten Debbie Nathan hvor hun forteller om sin fortid som “teletorg spåkone”.

Afterward I learned that the biggest company, Psychic Friends, was taking in $150 million a year before it was bankrupted last year by competition from numerous smaller companies including Psychic Readers, Kenny Kingston and LaToya Jackson. By the late 1990s, these businesses had jacked the industry’s earnings up to at least $300 million annually. For this we can thank the Reagan administration; in 1984, the Federal Communications Commission lifted its 16-minute-an-hour restriction on TV advertising, paving the way for monster hourlong infomercials. Add to this a dramatic proliferation of 800- and 900-number marketing and computerized billing technologies. The result was an enormous “futures” market.

At the time, I was a struggling freelance journalist, so I decided to write about the industry after working in it. As someone who’s so skeptical of the paranormal that half the time I can’t remember my astrological sign, I thought it would be revealing if someone like myself could do a good job as a dial-a-clairvoyant.

Men ting ble mer personlig og komplisert enn hun hadde forestilt seg…