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the 'news'

I was reading my rss feeds this morning and as I was skimming through the news headlines, it occurred to me that I HATE the news. Why? It's all bad! It's depressing! Headlines such as "Teens counselled after suspected double murder-suicide" and "Israeli air strike kills 3 children" are common, amongst the terrible things our sporting heroes have done, and my favorite, the celebrity garbage.

Why can't we have some feel good news? Why the sensationalist headlines? I saw another story on that double murder suicide one that began with "Community rallies around orphaned teens" Now isn't that a much better slant on the story? Instead of focusing in the tragedy, this one focused on the support and the good things that have come about as a result of a horrendous event in two young lives. I don't understand why there isn't more of this. How many headlines do you see along the lines of "Good samaritan hands back $100,000 after finding it in the garbage" or "Government LISTENS to public"

As a parent I sat and watched the events of 911 unfold with my infants hand in mine and tears running down my face thinking about what kind of world I've brought her into. According to the media, it's all doom and gloom! If aliens ONLY had our media as a source of information about this planet, what would they think about us?

But just WHO is to blame for such a negative and shocking perception of life? People have been selling news for years. By now they've worked out that they sell more if that news is terrible, shocking, BAD. So are we, the consumers of that news, really the ones at fault for lining their pockets when they do tell us about all the crappy things that have happened? Am I unusual in my need to know about all the GOOD that happens in this world? I really hope I'm not. Would you call me a social outcast if I don't give a rats ass about whether Mr Cruise is going to eat a placenta? Is it wrong that I'm sick of seeing how our governments are spending money on a war that isn't really ours when we have thousands of homeless people on our streets?

I'm not saying that I think we shouldn't know about the tragedies, the wars, the deaths, the frustrated teenagers who shoot their classmates. If we don't know about these things, then how can we find causes and reasons and solutions to help ensure it doesn't happen in future generations? But should the news we are fed be a more balanced mix between the good and bad? There are millions of people out there who do so much good for this world, and we don't know about them. But do we really want it? Like I said, bad news sells. Why is that? Do we only want to know about the bad so that we can feel good about ourselves? I mean how many times have we said something along the lines of 'well at least i'm not robbing __s' or 'hey the kids could be doing much worse things' Are we simply not interested in knowing about the great acts people perform each and every day because we feel our contributions to this world would be inadequate by comparison?

I think it's very sad that I've become so skeptical about the good in human nature that when I read a story earlier about there being more giant pandas in the wild than initially thought, my first reaction was 'great! now people know they are there they will go find them for their own evil purposes!" Is this because I see far too much wrong doing in this world and automatically assume the worst of people? I honestly don't know. I do know that there IS more good than bad in this world, and I for one would like to SEE more of it in our media. I think it's important as parents that whilst we don't shelter our kids from the 'real world' its just as important to emphasise the good side to human nature. But it's not easy finding those things....