How Does “News” Make You Feel?

People may say they want “good news” but I don’t think the newscast is the place for this sort of thing. There are plenty of places for a positive feel-good story about these UTA students. There are magazines, feature shows, online sites. However, the news is about what’s new and that will have an impact on our lives as citizens and the truth is that often starts when bad things happen. 158 planes took and landed safely at the airport today. That isn’t news. The one that didn’t is.

When we see bad things on the news, that gives us an opportunity and an impetus to become more active citizens. The recent gang-rape of a high school student in Richmond, California has created a chance for the community to come together, to offer support for the victim, and to address the conditions in our schools and our society that lead to such a thing. Ignoring this horrific story in order to focus on happier fare robs us as a community from being able to feel outrage and to get involved to effect change. The same thing goes for health care or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or the many other stories that seem like “bad news.”

I’m delighted that you had a positive experience on your retreat. I would like to know about it in more detail. But to me your story belongs in the magazine section of the Sunday paper, not on the front page.

I believe you missed my point or I didn’t illustrate it well enough. My point was that the news is overwhelmed with “bad news”. Why can’t there be stories that aren’t about murder, death, destruction and politics mixed in so it’s not just an endless tirade of negativity? I believe positive stories can effect change as well. I’m just stating that all the news seems to do is cause you to feel like as a species we seem to be nothing but jerks. I’m just saying, I think it’s kind of sad that positive stories unless they’re overwhelmingly extraordinary, they’re not newsworthy. I think there can be a balance, don’t you?

I guess you missed my point or I didn’t illustrate it well enough. There’s a place for bad (or political) news on the front page or in the first block of the newscast. There’s a place for positive news in the features or magazine section of at the end of the newscast.

I guess we both meant the same thing as a balance. In your case time wise, start with the bad and end with the good.

Unfortunately, the truth is the news media follow the blood trail. In NY that is about the most common thing you hear in the news. There are some times when it’s a good idea just to turn it off or not read and skip those newspaper stories alltogether. I tune into EWTN occassionally and listen to the Gospel.

“I make my living off the Evening News
Just give me something-something I can use
People love it when you lose, They love dirty laundry”

Unfortunately, this is not something new. Don Henley wrote a song about it over 25 years ago. Human nature draws us to shocking/tragic events like moths to a flame.

It’s the same reason people slow down, stop and stare at a traffic accident on the other side of a divided highway.

Now, I do beleive that a more balanced approach to news reporting is a good thing. But “feel good” stories don’t sell ad space. At the end of the day, it is about making money.

@Bryan…while the occasional tragic story may spur some action, most of the time it does not. When was the last time you stood up and participated in supporting a victim’s right organization? Did you protest when news of Vicks involvment in animal abuse was made public?

I am not condemning you as you are not alone. Most of us rarely get involved in events unless they hit us close to home. We give to a cancer research organization and participate in walks when we lose a loved one to the horrible disease, but all too often, it’s someone else’s problem. We may all feel emotional about a circumstance or event, but we often fail to act…that too is human nature.

Would I like to see a more balanced approach? Sure, and perhaps that will spur some on to action, but I don’t hold my breath.

Most often, these good news stories are better protrayed in hollywood films.

Just some thoughts.

Good news for me is what I want to read. For you is what you want to read. What is good for you may not be good for me.

Lots of Americans feel proud for their soldiers fighting in Iraq. (Good or bad?)

Iraq families don’t have the chance to speak to the world about their dead sons. (Good or bad?)

Switch on your TV and you have a lot to watch, your fingertips are on control. I agree that there must to be a equilibrium to keep society aware of what happens if if they cross the limits, for bad or for good.

When Michael Moore made Sicko, how would you define his documentary? Good or bad?

The time Darwin was writing his theory of evolution, he was reading one essay from Thomas Malthus that says:

(copied from wikipedia)
“This natural inequality of the two powers, of population, and of production of the earth, and that great law of our nature which must constantly keep their effects equal, form the great difficulty that appears to me insurmountable in the way to the perfectibility of society.”

I agree that must exist a balance and is up to you to decide what to look for.

One of our local TV stations (in a metropolitan TV market of over 1 million) is making a point of airing good news stories in their newscasts (some days putting it in the first few minutes of the broadcast, as opposed to somewhere in the middle or in the end of the show). Viewers apparently have been responding positively to their efforts.

I think it’s not just the amount of bad news out there, but the fact that it all starts becoming a bit much based on the increased amount of all kinds of news that we come into contact with every day and anxiety levels are up. There’s news on TV and radio, news on our cellphones, news on a screen in the elevator. Heavens, people are even calling twitter a “news” aggregate (if this kind news was anywhere near valuable then we ought not to ever miss a tweet.

As much as people are reminded of the fact, they do seem to forget that all this information is in fact very much pushed into our lives by media companies in general (hence the increased debate over what really constitutes news). The screens in the elevator are a case in point. Sure it’s something to look at on the way up, but then why news? Moreover, why news which we know to be predominantly bad?

To say that news is something that impacts our lives as citizens is true. But does only bad news impact our lives? Almost all of the time we do not take action based on bad news received anyway. The world is changing and people will realise, slowly, that good news has as much or moreactual effect on us, and certainly for the better.

If we’re going to fill our heads with mostly bad “news” every day – which we will never act upon – why not rather fill our heads with good news which will at the very least improve our mood, if not spur some sort of change in our own lives.

Simply put, it is far better to actively strive for the positive rather than to simply avoid the negative – far more action will result. This is very much like the anti-war vs. pro-peace analogy.

When people begin to seek out good news as individuals, the media will happily follow, news will change, and before you know it we won’t be having this discussion at all.

I avoid news too at all costs, if it’s important it will find me. Way to go swordofdestiny!