Is Good News Bad News? - Learn to Balance
Monday, October 10, 2011
When turning on the TV to watch the nighty news cast, there is almost a guarantee that the headlines will be filled with something negative. Murder, theft, and other police reports are almost always the top stories for the day even though they tend to give a negative outlook on our local communities. Why is it that media outlets always feel the need to report the negative instead of the positive?
A recent blog seems to have targeted the exact same perspective and voiced an opinion that many tend to agree with. Where is the balance? News outlets have taken a trend of reporting the "bad" news all around us because it seems that people are more concerned about the scandal or having the dirty gossip for what is going on, but more and more, people are asking, where is the good?
One reader comments "We begin to feel frightened, and it really isn't as bad as they make it out to be...It's too much violence...It's nice to hear something good, like an achievement. Or, because they've always done these stories on the bad part of welfare, report stories on people who've pulled themselves up out of it...Most of it is accidents or homicides...Have some stuff that isn't all crime related..."
In a country that is full of violence and always at war, when will media outlets turn to the good and try to help public perspective gain a better insight?
2 comments:
I don't think the media will ever stop reporting on the "bad" stories that happen in communities. I don't even think these stories are necessarily giving communities a bad name; they simply have more prominence and importance to the viewers. The stories about murder, robberies, and theft are the stories that keep those people watching up-to-date on what is taking place in their communities and cannot be filtered off the airway simply because they are seen as negative or bad to some people.
I understand that media companies are working to keep the public informed and that's why they share so much of this "bad" news. However, even beyond the necessity of it, people seem to have some strange obsession with hearing about other people's lives who are worse than their. While I would like to see more "good" stories about achievements and other positive things, I do think most stations and papers do a good job of balancing it based on the public interest.
Post a Comment