Good news is no news.

[crispini]

Read this and thought of ya'll. :hi: Thinking of you guys-- work & the primaries are kickin' my ass. Hope to be by soon. :hi:

Good news is no news
By Steve Salerno, STEVE SALERNO's latest book is "SHAM: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless."
February 21, 2006


THERE ARE stories you won't see, hear or read today. The employment rate is 95.1%. About 29,564 domestic flights took off and landed without incident. Four million Iraqi children got safely to school. Meanwhile, their parents shopped, drove to work or otherwise went about their daily routines, mostly — overwhelmingly — without getting assassinated.

A pointless exercise in Pollyannaish thinking? Hardly. The foregoing has major implications for how we get our news, what we conclude from it and our perceptions of life itself. In its most elementary sense, after all, newsworthiness is built on a foundation of anomaly — the classic "man bites dog" paradigm. (A second newsroom aphorism: "Nobody writes about the planes that land.")

Though that sounds common-sensical enough, few of us pause to think about the upshot of such truisms. That is, what you see each day on television, read about in the newspaper or hear during those 22-minute segments in which all-news radio stations promise to deliver "your world" is not, in fact, your world. Rather, it is the negative image of your world. Put another way, the news provides you with a high-resolution snapshot of what life isn't.

more...
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-salerno21feb21,0,373749.story?track=tothtml

I like this the best:

Put another way, the news provides you with a high-resolution snapshot of what life isn't.

Excellent food for thought.

[Patsy Stone]

1. Morning, crispi!

That's a great way to put it in perspective! I do believe that if the state ran the news there would only be good news.

Morning, doll! :hi:

[WolverineDG]

2. Hola Chica!

Don't worry, it will all be over on Tuesday! (and then the run-off season starts & that's got me :scared: here).

dg

[RevCheesehead]

3. I dunno, Crispi....

Unemployment rate may be at 95.1%, but that doesn't mean that 95% of eligible people are working. Some aren't counted anymore, because after 3 months, their names drop off the rolls. Nor would I dare presume that Iraqi men, women or children feel safe because they got to school or bought a loaf of bread. And I still have misgivings about flying, for a multitude of reasons.

Meanwhile, the media has been silent about crucial things. They report Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and devote only a few moments to the heart-breaking fact that many of these people STILL have no help, no place to live, no government assistance. I think that reporting the "good news" that Mardi Gras went on as usual sends a false message to people - that life is returning to normal for New Orleans. Some people will hear only that part, and then dismiss the rest, thinking "well, they're getting back on their feet - we don't need to worry about that anymore."

There may be countless examples of sex offenders who've been paroled who have NOT molested children, banks that haven't been robbed, etc..., but there are also unreported rapes, hate crimes, assaults, murders, foreclosures, factory closings, corporate downsizing/outsourcing, etc... that barely register a blip on the radar.

I feel for journalists, but even more for editors. Choosing which stories to report is a moral dilemna. However, I think that even worse, many of the choices are made, not by "what's important," but instead, by "what will drive the ratings." All I have to do is point to Keith's "Stories my producers are forcing me to do."

Someday, we'll realize that life isn't about money afterall. :(