My Daily News Sources Are Depressing Me
This is totally un-Photoshop or photography related, so you might want to skip this, but my wife and I were having a discussion over breakfast last month that sparked this post, and I just felt I had to write about it, even though it’s well outside my usual area of reporting.
I usually like to start my day by checking the news, and I usually start by taking a quick look at both CNN.com and Fox News.com (that’s my attempt at trying to get both sides of the story), but I’ve gotten to the point that I don’t want to read the morning news anymore, because they include so much tragic news of children being horribly abused, or women being killed or raped, and children being killed, that I don’t start my day informed—I start my day depressed.
I want to read about politics, world news, finance, what’s happening in the Middle East, sports, entertainment news, weather, our government, science, health, and technology. I do want to know about suffering and tragedy around the world that we can do something about, but I hate reading every day about the husband that bludgeoned his pregnant wife, and then killed his four year old daughter. I hate hearing about kids being tortured, and women being beaten, and a mother putting her child in a microwave. As a parent myself, it not only sends chills down my spine, but it chips away at my soul wondering how anyone, anywhere could do these horrible things to people, much less to their own family members and children.
We’re a country of 300 million people, and within a group of that many people, lie some incredibly tragic stories, but when they’re served up to you every day in your own home, it feels like it’s happening all around you. As my wife said, “Do I have to hear about every bad mother that does something horrible to her kids in every state, every day?” Even when it happens 3,000 miles away, they make it sound like it happened in the house next door.
Of course, you might say, “Well Scott, just don’t read those stories” but you don’t even have to — as I showed my wife, the news headlines are tragic and depressing all by themselves—you don’t even need to read the story. So, as a totally unscientific experiment, I thought for one week, I’d write down every personal tragedy headline from both CNN.com and FoxNews.com and see if I’m being as bombarded with it as I feel like I am.
I started on Saturday, January 12th 2008 and for one week I just copied and pasted those headlines right off their home page, and into a text document. So, how bad were these headlines really? You tell me:
- Cops Dig to Recover Pregnant Marine’s Remains
- Stabbed Woman, 4 Kids Found Dead in Burning Home
- Police: Dad Who Wanted Son Killed Baby Girl
- HIV-Positive Man Pleads Guilty to Sex Acts With Teens
- Baby tossed from SUV
- Mother Charged With Murder: Kids Were ‘Possessed by Demons
- Cops: Mom Put Son, 7, in Oven as Punishment
- Body of 1 of 4 Kids Thrown From Bridge Found
- Cops: Dad Sodomized Teen Stepson to Avenge Rape
- Unconscious Ohio Man Charged With Killing Wife, 4 Kids
- 2nd Body Found in Search For Kids Thrown Off Bridge
- Manhunt After 2 Women, 2 Kids Shot Dead in Indianapolis
- Woman tried to save four girls, no one listened
- Stray Bullet Changes 10-Year-Old Boy’s Life Forever
- Iraqi Official’s Convoy Runs Over, Kills 5 Children
- Ex-Scout Leader Caught in World Child Porn Sting
- Americans Eyed in Brazil Nudist Colony Abuse of Kids
- Man Charged in Missing NYC Woman Case
- Schoolgirl Rape Victim Burned With Acid
- Kenyan Gangs Using Genital Mutilation as Weapon
- Tiger Attack 911 Tape: ‘My Brother’s About to Die!’
- Dead Girl’s Hell Revisited at Stepfather’s Murder Trial
- ‘Baby Grace’ Laid to Rest After Washing Ashore in Texas
- Dramatic 911 call in hiker’s murder
- Gruesome Pics Show Slain Coed’s Home Night of Murder
- Student Shot in North Carolina Drive-By
- Ohio Man Accused of Killing Family in Fire
- Texas Teen in 911 Call: ‘I’m Dying’
- Student shot in school parking lot
- Mom says boy was bullied to death
- Teens accused of pimping girls, gang-rape
- Slain hiker remembered as ‘angel,’ ‘firecracker’
- Hiker’s alleged killer named in 3 more deaths
- Mayor: D.C. failed 4 slain children
- Baby Dies After Sitter Swings Him in Sleeping Bag
- Missouri Mayor Charged in Internet Child Sex Sting
- House party teen charged with child porn
- 2 tiny corpses found; search on for 2 more
- Sleeping bag prank kills toddler
- Letters show misery of jungle hostages
- 5 Found Dead in Submerged Car
- Baby Thrown Off Freeway Bridge, Hit by Cars
- Mom Backing Out of Driveway Kills Daughter, 2
- Lawmaker Gets 44 Years for Raping Foster Daughters
- 4 kids under age 5 trapped in burning car
- Letter from dead sister haunts brothers
- Woman Kills Self, 2 Children by Walking Onto Interstate
- College Wrestler Killed in Crash on Way to Meet
- Police Find Body in Search for Florida Mom
- 15-Year-Old Fatally Stabbed in Schoolyard
- 4 Arrested in Indianapolis Murders of Moms, Kids
- Baby Put Up for Sale on Craigslist
- Alaskan Group Wants to Kill Wolf Pups in Dens
- College Wrestler Killed in Crash on Way to Meet
That’s how much personal human tragedy is served up to me every week, 52 weeks a year. Now, here’s the thing: These aren’t all the headlines like this they ran; these are just the ones I found at the time that I checked the news from my home, so it’s really just a sampling from the few times a day I check the news. As I said, this wasn’t scientific (by any means), and was just a “chance” sampling taken at whenever I got around to checking the news that day.
In my un-official sampling, I did note which ones were from CNN.com and which ones where from FoxNews.com, and the majority of the tragic headlines turned out to be from FoxNews.com, so at least that told me maybe I don’t need as much “Balanced” news as I thought. So I’m on the lookout for an online source that tells me what’s going on in the world, in politics, finance, sports, etc., without making me depressed, disgusted, frustrated, and just plain bummed each morning on my way to work
I’m not trying to pretend these things don’t happen—I know they do (I’ve been served a steady diet of it for years now), I just need a break from it. I need a breather from daily piles of personal tragedy and I just need the “other” news. I need a different daily world news source, and if you know of one that I should be reading instead, just post it here in my comments section, and I’ll gladly give give it a read. Thanks for taking the time to read this, and maybe if enough people find they need a “new news source,” these sites will start to change. That would actually cheer me up.
You are absolutely right! It is just downright unhealthy. I have gone through phases where I have this same wakeup, so thanks for today’s “wakeup.” The news media appeals to thats same morbid curiosity that tempts us to look at that accident while driving by that you really don’t want to see.
This IS what’s happening in America (and even the world). This IS the news. We do have problems. I face such problems everyday on the streets of my city. I am a police man from Arkansas. What many people don’t understand, and even I didn’t until becoming a law enforcer, is what is REALLY happening on their streets.
Scott, I know you are aware of what’s happening but you would rather not feel like it’s happening next door to you when it’s actually happening far across the country. However, what is keeping it from coming to your city, your suburb, your neighbors house, or even you own backyard? Call me paranoid, but at least I’m expecting the unexpected. Especially now more than 20 years ago with the religious wars and political arguments in our nation and beyond.
Children now carry guns to school, and as you’ve seen recently they seem to carry an arsenal. Legislature has attempted to and succeeded in preventing honest, law abiding citizens that have concealed handgun permits from being able to carry that concealed weapon while on government property and schools. I don’t understand that. If this person was trusted to carry a weapon on their hip or pocket or even purse by their state’s government, why would you keep them from being able to carry it to school with them? Lord knows that the “bad guy(s)/gal(s)” aren’t going to refrain from carrying theirs on campus. How many lives could have been saved because of one lone “vigilante”, if you will, one brave citizen, had they only been allowed to carry on campus.
Sorry, but I think you get my point!
/end rant
As to your initial point, unfortunately there are a lot of people that don’t want to be bothered by the personal tragedies that other people face. People don’t want to know about it. That way they can deny that it will ever happen to them. This is going to sound corny as all get out but here goes: “Knowing is half the battle!”
My $.02,
Sean C.
Arkansas
I’m surprised noone mentioned USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com
BBC News certainly strives to be balanced in its reporting.
Scott,
You’re right on track. Newspapers and talk radio are at least 90% doom and gloom. It seems that it is much too easy to report bad news. Anything that remotely could be thought of as good news is overlooked, skipped or spun into bad. In so doing – the bad has become “normal”. It’s a vicious spiral downward. Talk about unbalanced news – it’s all bad news with the slant of the particular paper or station.
Challenge – try to find any good news article in the front section of any newspaper.
Many years ago I took a course from Ed Foreman (http://www.edforeman.com/). He really opened my eyes to the fact that we all have choice to have a good day or a bad day based on how we start our day.
Judging by your replies we are not alone in our thoughts on the news – what is presented and how.
Another vote for news.bbc.co.uk and NPR. The BBC covers things that don’t make the news here in the states, and NPR tells you why something is happening, not just that it is happening.
Hey Scott!
The name is cheesy (and they need a new color scheme), but this is where I go for news that lets me know what’s going on in the world. Not depress me with sensational headlines:
http://www.happynews.com/index.htm
Scott,
Definitely use RSS feeds. Embrace this new technology, and throw away the old one. Once I got started on it, I have not looked back. Let me help you get an idea of how to set it up.
The best RSS feed reader for Mac is NetNewsWire, and it is now free. If you install it, and when you’re browsing a site you like, you can click the RSS button in Safari to add it to your feeds if it has one. NNW is very powerful, and slick, and the best for any platform. There’s about a billion features, which I will not get into, but if you have any questions, I put my email in the required section.
As for content, I myself have different folders set up for different feeds:
“The News”, as filtered by myself, includes a local rag, the Consumerist, electoral-vote.com, and some other things. I’m sure CNN and FOX have RSS feeds for specific news, but so does MSNBC.
For me, it goes beyond regular news; “Technology” has a lot of feeds, like Gizmodo’s top posts so that I don’t have a billion posts come through every hour and just the ones people found interesting, Apple Hot News, AppleInsider, MacRumors, Lifehacker top (clever do-it-yourself blog), the Raw Feed (very straight forward tech blog).
“Photography” has your blog (thanks!), Dave Cross’s blog, dpreview.com, and a local photoblog. You have mentioned other people’s blogs in past posts, I think, so many they have some feeds? I’ll probably go back and check myself.
“Comedy” contains my crude sense of humor. There’s Perry Bible Fellowship (surreal comic), XKCD (nerd comic), TV in Japan (weird Japanese TV), White Wine (sentence posts, white guys complaining about things).
You get the idea. The sky’s the limit, and when you find a good news source, it really makes your day.
If you are into video podcasts, while you probably use iTunes for a lot of them, take a look at the semi-new Miro application. They have a wonderful guide that has many many video podcast channels, with search, pictures, ratings, and descriptions (and a lot of HD content to boot). You can add youtube channels, to it as well.
Again, shoot me an email if you need help with all of this. I’m a fan of you and your photoshop crew, and the least I can do is try and help you out for a change…
Bravo for someone finally putting in writing how sickening it is to hear all this garbage. I’s sad it goes on but I don’t think our kids have to be exposed to negativity on a continuous basis.
Why not report things like I saw the other day – a 7 year old made a basket to win his league championship in basketball with a shot from 1/2 court. A future NBA Star!!
Foxnews should be renamed to Fox Spews
One site that is pretty well known is Fark.com
Once on, there are different categories:
sports Business Geek Showbiz Politics Music Video
This way, if you just want to see what’s going on in sports, just hit the sports tab, or the geek tab… They have a way of making a humor joke in the middle with the link on the Far left.
It has very up to date news, it’s the stories that we don’t always hear about in the papers.. The main News tab has a lot of crazy stories, but like I said, if you just want sports just hit the sports or my personal favorite tab: The Geek Tab.
Dan
http://danfrancisphotography.com/
Well Scott for what its worth I work in a 911 Center and the news calls us first. We don’t get asked what happened today. The question usually is did anyone die? or What car wreck can you tell me about? Its never oh did you save anyone today? So I feel ya. I refuse to watch the news in the mornings I’ve already lived it and know nothing good will be aired. Its just not “News Worthy” is what they tell me.
Scott:
For news and only news try: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/region/north_america/
They don’t spin it to the left or right. They just present it.
Fox, CNN and all the others are just digital train wrecks, waiting for the next gawker.
I feel the same way, and my solution is this: npr.org. There are so many “driveway stories” that I honestly sat in my car for 3 minutes before going inside last night to listen to the end of a story.
Hey Scott,
I subscribe to this 24 hours day of prayer and worship (explicit Christian) on the web for 10 bucks a month.
http://www.ihop.org/Group/Group.aspx?id=1000000686
Here I can watch and listen to some of the best cutting edge worship I have ever found. This is by far the best news I hear
Ken
It is funny to me how many of the commentators cite their news sources as being unbiased and balanced. Personally, I think everyone has an agenda when they present the news. Everyone has an opinion on everything and thus it will come across in some way if only by what stories are reported and what stories are not.
Everyone wants to live in a world where those headlines don’t take place. In my humble opinion the answer is not to “look out for yourself.” Looking out for oneself all the time will give you 6 billion people doing what they want to do and nothing less.
If anyone wants to email about this and discuss it online, one photographer to another, =) I love stuff like this.
Scott –
You said, “I want to read about politics, world news, finance, what’s happening in the Middle East, sports, entertainment news, weather, our government, science, health, and technology.”
Looks like couple of people mentioned it already, but I’ll add another voice – read Wall Street Journal. You won’t get much for free, so you will have to get paid subscription to the Online Journal, but I find them to be the most balanced source of the kind of news you and I are interested in. They don’t like to publish sensational stories of parents dropping their kids off the bridge, etc, their opinion pieces are often written by important people in the world of politics, technology and so forth instead of cheap journalist who do anything to generate clicks, and they simply cover technology and science news better than anyone else, and of course they’re best when it comes to business news. You should try their free 30-day Online Journal Subscription and see if it makes a difference.
On top of that, I also really like Economist. I was not born in the US, but I now live here, and lack of world news on TV and in press really bothers me, but Economist does fill that gap for me with their excellent coverage of what’s happening around the world.
Hey love everything you do…and I agree with you on the news, this is why I listen to NPR, DemocracyNow ( democracynow.org ), I read the FinancialTimes ( FT.com ), and I can’t forget CurrentTV ( current.com ) you may have that on your channels
CW
Wallstreet journal is great, but ft.com (financial times) is free and quite similar
CW
Hi Scott,
Years ago I stopped reading a lot of the national newspapers and watching the evening news programs for exactly this reason. I have worked in the law enforcement community for the past 15 years and I know that this stuff goes on each day all over the world. Today the news organizations do not present its viewers with news, they present us with entertainment…and a slanted view of the news. They routinely try to create news stories to sell papers, advertising and get viewers to tune in to their channel.
How many times have you heard those famous “News Teases”? “Shark attacks on the rise. Should _you_ go back in the water? Tune in at eleven to find out if your in danger.” And you think…gee, I live in FL, should I be worried…only to find out that the story is about the Great Barrier Reef.
I have resorted to RSS news feed and the use of Google Reader for all my online information gathering. With many national and international news publications and websites you can choose to subscribe to only the information you want to receive.
For a majority of my international news I subscribe to the BBC’s news feeds. You can find a list of them at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/help/3223484.stm. I have found them to be the most fair and balanced, unlike (cough…Fox News…cough).
Steve
Hey Scott
Maybe God is trying to get our attention, so that we start making changes for the better. Such as, spending more time with our kids and familys, spending more time getting to know our neighbors and friends.
Just ask yourself this question, when are the times that you are really the happiest. I think for most of us it is when we are giving of ourselves to others. Be it family or friends or strangers at a seminar for example. Just my two cents.
God Bless
If you want politics, go to c-span.org and capitalnews.org
They recently re-did their website, so it is actually reader friendly at this point
And you can be sure not to read any of those headlines you pasted in your blog.
Scott,
I hear you. I was constantly bombarded like you, and I decided to stop reading the daily news from television sources (because you often don’t know what they are about to tell you — at least with the web, you can stop reading)
Here’s what helped me regain a sense of balance even with all these outrageous things happening — I began to volunteer for a hospice. Now, I don’t think everyone should volunteer for a hospice, but I knew that I was doing what I could to help ‘my backyard’ (the people in my community) find peace with themselves and the world.
Funny, when I felt like I was doing my own small part in improving the world, I felt like I could feel outrage at what was being done, but yet know that a part of the world *I* could affect was being taken care of.
Don’t mean to be preachy — just thought to share a solution that worked with me.
Cheers!
Mike
Hi, Scott.
If you understand why we get so much depressing and non-news stories it will help you to cope and maintain a sanguine outlook. These stories are what Lenin might have called the opiate of the masses designed to take people’s minds off the activities of government and large corporations who wish to operate at times above the rule of law. You can fill in the blanks–the war in Iraq, the sub-prime mortgage fiasco, the bumbled efforts to provide aid to victims of Katrina, the unaccountability of the Bush administration on numerous activities, etc.
To further aid and abet the major news networks, your journalists and political pundits engage in an endless inane babble of piffle that doesn’t challenge or bring to light transgressions by elected people who are supposed to be serving your best interests.
Much is the same here in Canada. We are served the same dollop of blather for the same reasons.
The solution is to realize that our sanity comes from our ability to use our individual talents to help each other and to engage in activities that ennoble the mind and the spirit. Cultivating a hobby can be a release of one’s talents. When we have something better to choose we know we don’t have to become slaves to the agenda handed to us by the news media.
We can always choose what we watch and listen to and maybe that’s the answer — we have to be selective. NAPP members are lucky in that we have a common interest in Photoshop, photography, etc. and other hobbies that we can share with others. That’s my rant.
One of my favorite writers is Victor Davis Hanson—topical, but based in historical context. While he doesn’t write “feel good” articles, by any means, he is thoughtful and doesn’t write about the “if it bleeds, it leads” stuff that most media bombards us with. You will learn a great deal about history if you read much of his writing. You can find him at http://www.victorhanson.com/. I gave up most newscast a long time ago for the same reasons you cite.
Scott – We spend the winter in the Tampa area and subscribe to the St. Petersburg Times. I totally agree that reading a local paper does not much insight into what is happening around the world. For that I read the New York Times online (and I am sure other major newspapers would also cover world and national news). Add the News Hours with Jim Lehrer on PBS and I think we have a good handle on the news. I’ll do my own balancing.
Having started out in the newspaper business I can agree with you. Journalism is still stuck in the era of making every traffic accident a story. Newspapers and evening news shows are struggling because people are voting with their lack of attention against this coverage of yesteryear. Maybe we are splitting to where the tabloid reader crowd will have its trash and slightly more informed readers will have broader coverage of important issues in far fewer newspapers and broadcast media outlets.
Scott,
For international news I read International Herald Tribune and BBC. Both available as RRS streams on Mac as a widget. For national/international
nothing beats the Wall Street Journal and the Economist….no sensational stuff like that you mention…I just ignore the financials as I rebalance the portfolio once a year.
World magazine is a Christian based news magazine devoid of the usual focus on mans depravity.
News is helpful but not altogether necessary, especially when it myopically focuses on our fallen nature.
Bob Moore
Scott, I too agree with you. I stopped watching television news years ago not just because the news was always so negative, but even moreso because I simply didn’t understand what I was supposed to do with information once I received it.
When I hear the weather report, I can do something with that information. But when I hear about tragic things that happen to individuals or groups, it’s not clear what I should do with that information, or even sometimes why I should even know about it.
So most of my news comes through talk radio like Air America, where at least I’m getting some analysis about current and political events. I also use Google News because that way I can select and filter the type of news items I want to read about. So I get some world and local news headlines that I can scan, then I get selected headlines on items of specific interests such as photography, business marketing, African-American people, etc
By viewing Google news on daily basis, I feel I’m staying tapped into what’s going in the world, but the same time I’m not being weighted down with topics like the ones you list above.
You’re absolutely right. To the bloke who said BBC is better – today at work we had a TV (pretty sure it was tuned to BBC) playing ALL day the story of some English guy who a model http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7254628.stm This story was even better for them (journalists) because it combined the second aspect of modern media – celebrity. If they’re not talking about some moron killing some innocent person, it’s about Britney or Winehouse.
That is why I pretty much stopped watching TV or going to general news websites. Only NYT.com, WSJ and Google Reader.
Scott,
In addition to all the suggestions, I would also suggest the McClatchy news service. http://www.mcclatchydc.com
They have excellent balanced (in the true sense – not Fox sense) reporting on important issues.
I get most of my news from the iGoogle personalized page. Of course I have most of the feeds set to tech or Mac related news. But Google will certainly let you focus on the topics you want rather than what the news sites promote as their top headlines.
Remember when the News used to be 15 mins. long? And covered important events. I quit watching the local news a long time ago because of the hype they use use to get you watch the great story at 11:00pm. The one that did for me was the “investigative reporter” was going to confront the operation of a local scam. The report showed her going to a vacate address and looking in the mail slot in the door. Not to mention any names but her Initials were Marty Emerale from channel 10 in San Diego.
I think the the news is all totally over analyzed by these experts. I love “The Daily Show”
Scott, maybe we all spend too much time thinking about the wrong things?
Philippians 4:8 Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
Hi Scott,
I agree 100%. Everything is sensationalized these days – even the weather. I gave up TV news years ago.
I just saw this quote last week – thought it spoke perfectly to your post. It’s by one of our founding fathers nonetheless;
I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.
Thomas Jefferson
3rd president of US (1743 – 1826)
I would try CFR.org ( Council of Foreign Relations) you will get all of your new from home and abroad. You can even sign up for a newsletter brief that sends to your email.
Sounds like you’re exhausted from being subjected to the endless stream of “true crime” tragedies that pass for news here.
To my mind, this stuff isn’t journalism, because the function of journalism is to provide actionable information on events home and abroad. The point is to give each of us the information we need to participate as citizens.
Unfortunately, a capitalist news service is driven by dollars, not civics. So no big surprise we’re treated as viewers instead of citizens. And unfortunately, since news outlets need to attract as many pairs of eyeballs as they can, we will continue receive a steady diet of true crime stories, pundit screaming matches, and incessant “horse-race” blather that passes for political analysis – because sensationalism sells.
Good journalism takes risks – meaning a story on government corruption or corporate misdeeds will raise the hackles of people in power. That kind of journalism is expensive to produce and puts heat on news agencies from people in powerful positions. And as we see each news cycle, the path of to profitability and the one least likely to generate useful controversy is the sensationalistic pap that passes for news here.
BTW – check out the Center For Public Integrity to read the kind of authentic journalism I’m writing about here (http://www.publicintegrity.org/default.aspx). It was founded by Charles Lewis, a former producer for 60 minutes, who abandoned that lucrative gig because he became disenchanted with the same stuff you talk about here.
Yeah that does suck… The world in so many places is such a bad place.
SK-
I agree. The words of a song or two describe this well. “she can tell you ’bout the plane crash with a gleem in her eye”- Don Henley. “Why don’t the newscasters cry when they read about people who died? At least they could be decent enough to put just a tear in their eye” Jack Johnson. Ratings, ratings, ratings.
All we can do is keep ourselves grounded and act humanely. Every interaction does make a difference.
Thanks for bringing this up.
Rob O
Hi Scott,
I’m sorry to hear how the daily News is depressing you, I feel your pain too which is why I don’t tune into Radio or TV News very often!
I would very much agree with people who have posted here about the news being ’sensationalist’. I mean who in their right minds wants to wake up to hearing about how an elderly person was beaten up for their money, or about children being abused! I know the world needs to hear about this stuff, but it doesn’t need to be in the headlines, just to sell papers and stuff!
I realize you are trying to find a better news source, but would you hear me out in the following paragraphs? Because it might be important to you.
Personally, I don’t agree however with people who say that the BBC are ‘balanced’ and ‘unbiased’. While they might not be so sensationalist like other News TV, they are however ‘anti almost everything’, meaning ‘anti Bush & Blair’, anti-Christian (some of their output undermines the Lord’s teachings in his Bible), and as a fellow Christian yourself Scott I’m sure you wouldn’t like that aspect! They are also increasingly being against Israel and their reporting is seemingly heavily biased in favor of the Secular religions there (and here in the UK as well I might add).
Also whenever America try to help out other poorer nations, almost no-one thanks them for it – instead the Media seem to only listen to people who are very often miss-informed about your Government’s efforts and who sometimes ‘hate’ America and the West too! This is what UK TV viewers are being ‘forced by law’ to pay for, each and every year in our License fees! Even Bill Clinton and a few CBS correspondents have questioned the BBC’s way of gathering news on world events sometimes I might point out!
If you want to read a ‘more informed’ view on world politics, may I suggest Michelle Malkin (www.michellemalkin.com She is a FOX correspondent and author, and while she might be regarded by some as being controversial, she isn’t afraid to tackle hot topics!
Take care and see you next week on PhotoshopUser TV!
I was sitting in my Journalism ethics course a couple years ago and I mentioned that the fear mongering that was going on in the paper concerning the bird flu epidemic was, to me, unethical. I told the class that there was no actual epidemic and there was no reason to portray it on the front page as a huge killer about to sweep America.
The class looked at me like I was an alien from another world. “How should we portray it,” the teacher asked? I told her that it was worthy of being reported but not as an extreme problem that everyone should fear. I didn’t know what else to say.
The mantra in journalism is “if it bleeds it leads.” Perhaps that sells more papers but I think it is interesting that news subscriptions are falling while celebrity magazine subscriptions are rising. Maybe people are looking for an escape from all this “news.”
Hey Scott,
Totally agree with you, I’m a new junkie myself and the news sources that you refer to, that is pretty much all they talk about.
Try:
New York Times – still the best in my opinion
Washington Post – Politics Politics Politics
CBC.ca (I’m canadian) – like the BBC, a much more balanced broadcast of news. In the US you have a hard time finding balanced news because the papers and tv are all owned by the company’s and politicians that they are writing about.
Google is also very good!
Happy hunting
Even though I support you Scott in the idea that news is way to focused on tragedy I am somewhat perplexed over the lack of perspective you display when saying you rather hear about things you can do something about rather then women and children on your “own street” getting beaten and killed.
I am curious as to what in the Middle Eastern conflicts you find easier to fix, and why you haven’t told anyone about it, then to walk over to your neighbor’s house and ask how they are doing when you hear the sound of domestic violence.
Scott you have the media spotlight well and firmly on you, with that come responsibility. I doubt you can change the networks news policy but you have get a few thousand of your website fans to realize they can and should care about the people around them, and in so doing will give the news media less domestic tragedy to write about and thus making you not having to read about it.
I totally agree with this and have watched this for years. My wife always hears me saying something should be done, but how do we change a giant company that is corrupt. It is time for some interesting, happy news bits. It might not be as interesting, but putting some good in the news would encourage people to think positive and live their lives with a different frame of mind.
It is the American way to fill them with fear and control them. As much as people think they are free, they are not. America is not the land of the free anymore. It is the land of fear.What better way to control people then pump them up with depressing fearful media
It is election time people!! Fill them with fear, say you got the answer and get the VOTE!
Yep I just have to agree. I moved to the UK from Australia in 2004 and noticed how negative the news was so I just stopped watching it and I felt so much better.
Now I am back in Australia, I do the same. I don’t watch the news and I hardly read the paper. It kind of drains me of energy. Besides if I do that its less time on photography.
As Eckhart Tolle has said, the news is there to sell negative emotion.
I produce “The Prosperity Podcast”. We have often commented on our show about the sad fact that the daily news is mostly negative with only the occasional positive or inspirational story. Self-help guru, James Arthur Ray, says that he stopped watching the news 10 years ago and hasn’t looked back. In fact, I question the need to be informed on a global scale. As a teacher of spiritual practice, I encourage my listeners to deal with what is immediately present in their daily lives and to make that the best it can be. Eliminating exposure to the negative and fearful mindset of most mass media would be a giant step to a happier and healthier life for all.
It just goes to show that tragedy sells papers, and drives ratings. It is a reflection of our society, who craves and feeds off this type of reporting. Certainly there are a few people who turn the channel or skip the story, but Americans love this type of sensational and tragic reporting. Have you seen Hotel Rwanda? I love the quote from Joaquin Pheonix’s character.
Whenever I get depressed about the news, I listen to Jack Johnson’s song “news.” It cheers me up, along with the rest of the album.
Hello scott,
I couldt agree more, I was reading you article and we have the same problem in France, I dont where to look for non depressing infos. I actually felt a lot better in my life when I didnt watch the news for a couple of weeks. At the end I just read the news I want from RSS feeds on the net on the subject of my interrest. The press whole economical basis is based on the fact that more you shock people, more you draw they attention and more they read, hence you can sell advertisement. But I refuse to beleive that theory been true, I believe that a lot of us would prefer to know about all the wonderfull stuff hapenning in the wolrd today. Someone you start a Good news show, Im sure it would rock !
Serge Ramelli
from Paris
I am among those who long ago stopped paying any attention to the news. My own life and personal relationships keep me supplied with enough intellectual and emotional stimulation and challenges that I have no need to go seeking more from the world outside.
Beyond the “tragedy sells papers” aspect of the whole thing, I know too that there are such things as mass consciousnesses (the awkwardness of that word notwithstanding) that are formed whenever two or more people come together, and I’m certain that if our consciousnesses, both mass and individual, were not so relentlessly burdened with negativity from the media, the world would be a radically different and far better place for our having a much happier and more positive outlook. Like Scott, I don’t think we should ignore negative things that happen and about which we can do something positive, but I think the key is being able to do something positive in the end. If there’s no possibility of that, then there’s no constructive purpose served by dwelling on the injustice. Optimism, not pessimism, is the catalyst to achievement. Let those local to the injustice, who can do something about it, do so, and let the rest of us deal with the injustices that present themselves to us in the courses of our own lives, rather than pay people to bring us news of injustice from afar. Nature tends to provide the balance of positive and negative influences that each of us needs in order to learn and grow and achieve what we need to achieve; when that balance is thrown off by several metric tons of negativity imported by freight carrier from distant lands, we get thrown off, distracted and depressed, and have a much harder time maintaining what positivity we need in order to keep going, being reasonably happy and productive.
Oh, I’m prattling…partly because there are so many facets to this discussion that I don’t know which ones to address where in order to present a cohesive view. But I think Scott’s really done that already anyway. I really just want to say that I wholeheartedly agree, and think that if we take his line of thinking on the matter to its logical conclusion, our selves, our personal relationships, our communities, our towns, our states, our nations, and our world will all be better places.
Scott, couldn’t agree with your more here. I’ve gotten up watching the evening news when I get home because it just depressed me and puts me in the bad mood for the rest of the night. After a long, tough day at work, it’s not so fun to come home and have the life sucked out of you on a daily basis just trying to keep up to date about what’s going on in the world. I’m still undecided as to whether there are that many horrible people in the world, or the sensationalist nature of the news these days just looks for headlines to grab attention – usually the most horrible and graphic things you could imagine; and then some.
Anyway, wanted to say thanks for posting this, as (oddly enough) it reminds me that you’re human, and not just some entity on the web posting about photoshop. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons I enjoy your books and blog. I hope we all live to see better days. Until then, keep up the good work.