Why is bad news more interesting than good news? The local TV news is about fires, rapes and murders—and weather. Have you ever seen anything on a local TV newscast but disasters, criminal events, and weather? (Some would classify weather forecasting as a criminal event.)
And newspapers are no more cheerful. But I’ll cut newspapers some slack on the weather. Your house could blow away before the newspaper arrives, and so we don’t pay much attention to weather reports in the newspaper. But newspapers print the same dreadful news, along with the national dreads, which local TV rarely mentions (the local dreads, the weather and the commercials don’t leave much time for national news on Channel X).
The daily newspaper national news usually includes a mix of sports, business and politics from Washington, London, Sri Lanka, Sao Paolo, and other places we can’t pronounce or locate on a map. Of course if your newspaper is a weekly, the weather section is ludicrous. But weekly newspapers have an especially sobering section that warrants extra space—the obituaries.
We don't pay enough attention to the good stuff. And so, I put together a sampling of news that I think should merit attention. These are listed in no particular order; simply as they fell from my still functioning, 67 year-old, non-Alzheimer affected brain.
Dateline: Durham, NC. "The Duke University Lacrosse team had a 100% graduation rate this year." It's true. Did you know that? We hear a lot about dumb jocks that can’t get to the verb, but not much about student-athletes who go to class, study, and earn a diploma. The Duke Lacrosse Team's academic achievements will be good news for some, but bad news for others; depending on their persuasion about that dreadful event with the dancer.
Dateline: Washington, DC: The National Center for Health Statistics: "In 2002, 2.6 million babies were born to parents with a marriage contract." The report said that another 1.4 million children were born out of wedlock that year. (And 1.4 million were killed in the womb.) Why don’t we celebrate parents who don't kill their babies? I don't care if they have a marriage contract; although I wonder why one would bring a child into this world without a social and legal umbrella. Note: 2002 is the most recent period I could find statistics for. Maybe it's better now.
Dateline: Atlantic City, NJ: "Last night, in Atlantic City, Bill Cosby held forth with two hours of non-profanity laced stories. They were rolling in the aisles." Mr. Cosby is dealing with his own set of dreads at the moment, but we should not forget the wholesome humor he has entertained us with for decades. He is a funny man and he does it without four-letter words.
Dateline: Philadelphia, PA. "Not one Philadelphia city official was indicted yesterday." (OK, I made this one up, but I'm sure there were a few days in the recent past when that statement would have been true.) Unless you live in Philadelphia, you cannot appreciate what a joyous reception that headline would receive. Of course, no one would believe it. Maybe they could run it in the funnies section.
Enough. I don't purposefully watch the local news on TV, but occasionally it drifts into my space, and without exception, I am amazed at the negative content. Maybe I should say the continuity, for it never changes: fires, rapes and murders. Local newspapers are no different; they too headline the dreads.
But the dreads can mean different things to different people. For some, they can be happy events, in a perverse sort of way. Take the NY Times for example. A few weeks ago a low level White House official was convicted of something to do with the Jack Abramoff scandal. You know the guy in Washington who bought off some Republican Congressmen? (They don't tell us that he bought off some Democrats, too.) Anyway this low level White House official got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, or his ass in a G-5, I'm not sure what. I had never heard of him before that event, and I can't remember his name now. I'm sure you can't either. And that's my point. The NY Times had this poor slob's color photo ON THE FRONT PAGE ABOVE THE FOLD, a space normally reserved for stock market crashes, declarations of war, and the death of world leaders. So much for objectivity in the newsroom. I assume this sad event was a happy one for The New York Times. (I'm not taking sides; I could pull a similar story from Fox News.)
This is one--but only one--of the reasons TV, newspapers, and news magazines are threatened. Not because they are partisan, but because they attempt to hide it. The Internet is a refreshing change. Amateur news on the web is unabashedly awash with opinions, and it is delivered head-on, not cloaked in oblique language. It comes from the bottom up, not top down from the editor's desks of the establishment news industry. And it is delivered in real time, not shackled to the 6:00 newscast, or the lumbering printing press.
The rise of the Internet and specifically the blogging format will surely go down as one of the most important events in news gathering history; perhaps all of history. It has liberated thought. Expression is unstructured, even out of control at times; uncontrollable might be a better description. But this medium has revealed some very good thinkers--and exceptional writers. And it has shrunk the world like nothing else in history. The establishment should be worried.
That is the good news.
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