Wednesday, October 29, 2008
News At Half Empty
So call me sentimental but during tech week when one suffers from a significant loss of sleep i fight the temptation to be incredibly negative by looking at those heart warming (all be it kind of cheesy) stories the news is so fond of broadcasting. So last monday i went onto MSN news to look for such a tale. I wanted to hear about charity funding a children's hospital or a Man who had run into a burning building to save a baby, anything to make me start thinking the world wasn't an awful cynical place (even if it really is). So I click on the little NEWS tab and what do i see, Palin effigies, Body discovered in search for murdered teacher , college tuition up 6.4 percent , and thousands lack power after northeast storm (ruining halloween!!). I had to do some serious digging before finally finding a video story about a special farm of animals used as a kind of therapy for children with mental disabilities. It made me say "awww" and cheered me up , but why did i have to search so hard for it. Why was the rotting corpse of a murdered woman on the front page but a family builds a farm for special needs children to experience joy from and they get buried at the bottom of the news bin? What is society's obsession with tragedy? what happened to the days of the depression , when people turned to musicals like Oklahoma because of their optimistic views? why battle hard times with more negativity. Why not focus on the good?
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This aspect of the media is what gets me so aggravated as well. Its hard sometimes, especially during anxious weeks like that, to cope with the human desire for tragedy. It is incredible how many amazing stories slip past the radar, each time passing a crucial opportunity to make the audience smile. I wonder even if people would watch the happy news? However, I believe the individual should not rely on media to shape their moods.
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