Do You Enjoy the News?

Do you enjoy the news, tolerate it or hate it?
Does it seem to you like the news is better, worse or the same?

Do you ever wonder how the newscasters manage to even report it--without laughing, crying, exploding, etc.,

Curious as usual.

9/29/2009


Alice...


At times I get furious at the news, all they report is
horror stories, War, Murders, Crooked politicians, I've
yet to see a human story ! Boy is saved by beloved pet.
Author hits best seller list with first book.. Politicians give
up their seats after four years of failure demanded by public.
You get the idea...


Cheers...Joe..

One of the reasons, I think, that the media so often report bad news is that it is news. Good stuff happens most of the time, so why bother to report it.

I've posted this link on other boards, and may have on this one, but it fits in well with Alice's question:

http://thegoodnessoflife.com/

Besides, all the images come from around Austin, TX - not far from where I live. I get to see this stuff all the time.

Quote :

There's no other place, no Virgin Islands, no Miami coastline, no boat trips across the Atlantic that can do for me what this soil, this land, this water, this people, and what these hills, these surroundings can do... They provide the stimulation and inspiration that nothing else can provide.
LBJ on the Texas Hill Country

Ann

Beautiful link, Ann,

Thanks it reminds me of you.

Joe,

I don't imagine you will be buying the CNN iphone for $1.99!

I watch the news just long enough to make sure we haven't gone out and invaded someone new.

I like the weather. Does that count?

I do read the newspaper, though. I can put it down or wad it up if I don't like what I see. Much more tactile than television.

I watch too much news. I love Ann's good news site. We need more of that.

Another frustration about the news is their reporting disasters. They will report for a few days as people are walking through water and dying, but then they stop. They need to write about what they are doing to survive, who is helping, how they are rebuilding. I previously mentioned the houses falling into the river as the levee by a lake in Wisconsin Dells let loose during a flood last summer. The whole lake went into the Wisconsin River and was left as a muddy mass. This year we went back to see it. The levee has been rebuilt, stronger and better. The lake is back, with boats and even some fishing. It was done with a miraculous combination of federal, state, and local funds, work and ingenuity.

The pictures of the houses falling into the river were shown world-wide, but not the new lake.

We need good news stories after the sad ones.

Carol

It isn't easy for people who have never worked in the business to understand what is news and what is not. Carol's point about houses falling into a lake is an example. That's definitely news. That the people rebuild is exactly what would be expected so it isn't news. It's good that they did so, but it isn't news.
It isn't news that 10,000 people safely drove to work today. That one was in a fatal accident along the way is news.
News is the unexpected. The expected is not news. Exceptions are such things as the passage of a law, the outcome of an election, the opening of a new factory and so forth.
However, more good news is reported than most people believe. Take a legal pad, draw a line down the middle, mark one column good and the other bad, then keep count with either TV news or a newspaper. You may be surprised.

Good idea, Dick ,

Where does the commentary go?

Madhatter,

I am with you.

Carol,

I watch too much too.

It is probably the conments that get tiresome. Especially waring are the ones I disagree with.