First few Google "Top Stories":
Hurricane Dolly Aims for Mexico, Texas; Alerts Issued (Update3)
Texas grand jury indicts 6 in polygamist ranch case
Serbian Premier Tells Fugitive War Crimes Suspects to Surrender
Yahoo:
• Dolly becomes hurricane, churns toward Texas
• Angry Serb nationalists clash with police after Karadzic arrest
• Polygamist sect leader Jeffs charged with child sex assault
USA Today:
It's not exhaustive, but you get the point - or you will. Actually what it is is exhausting.
I am getting close to the point where I can't pay attention to news anymore. Getting in the car and turning on All Things Considered sometimes gives me the urge to pull into the garage, close the door and crack the windows. (Those of you who have been can reassure the rest that this cannot happen due to the state of my garage.) Watching the TV news is one crap story after another, even sports radio has been tragic lately what with the Steeler's ownership issues and Farve going crazy.
What happened to good news?
Normally when I bitch about the news I take local news to task for not covering their local beat. We have national newscasts for national stories, how about you cover Monroeville - tell me why all those stores closed. Things like that. But not now, now I am depressed and "the media" isn't helping. Even this blog doesn't help much. Mrs. TANBI was saying that the content of my blog is fairly universally depressing (when I post from other sources - pictures of the cats are never depressing, even when shaved). I do tend to post things about our terrible government or grabby corporations, but then it's sort of a GIGO thing, yes? That's what I see.
One would think this isn't about outlet either. I am a fairly omnivorous news gatherer. I listen to NPR, but I also listen to Limbaugh and Savage, and even local news and sports radio. I have news feeds from Google and Marketplace as well as the nicheier AirAmreica. There are 25 feeds in my reader under "news" and really that's probably only 25% of the total feeds. My point here is that I don't think I am partial to sources that cover the world atypically. I think news outlets have become bogged down with bad news.
Once upon a time I think news editors tried to balance the tone of their output. I don't think they ever looked at it as "good news" vs. "bad news" but you could depend on the end of a broadcast being a "public interest story." I think we may have even lost that these days. More often than not that closing story will be about Britney's divorce or how Paris spent the night in jail. Those stories now run to gossip, and we're lucky when they are only the public interest story and not the lead. But moreover, the tone of these stories is also often down. They don't talk about people's achievements, they give us something we can snicker at, so we can be selfish and condescending.
I say we're snarky enough, thank you very much.
Briefly searching "good news" one will find that the phrase has been co-opted. That's too bad, because I think there really is a need now for a positively leaning newscast. This isn't to say that we should as a group bury our heads in the sand and not pay attention to the things that are going on, but rather that we need something to help counterweight against all the strife we're bombarded with on a daily basis. I know that the Bush administration is a bunch of weasels, and I am going to notice them trying to declare birth control pills a form of abortion without being inundated by it on every newscast.
There must be someone that finished something, discovered something, achieved something, gifted something, refurbished something, recycled something, birthed something, that somehow doesn't also include the eventual downfall of our nation, the deaths of thousands, or destruction of the planet - just has to be. Sure would be nice to hear about things like that.
I think I will take a little more time to look for it from now on.
2 comments:
I wanted to post you a link to a super-fun, interactive vendiagram that incorporated all the illegal goings-on that Bush and his committee have been part of and then I read this post of yours and died a little inside.
well I certainly hadn't meant for that to happen.
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